Hope
by fee-kh
Summary: When you loose something truly important, is it really possible to go back to the way things were before? Summer hiatus is over. Here you go. Chapter Five up and running. Enjoy.
1. Book One:The thing with feathers

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**A/N:** So this is one of my old stories. As in really old. And old unfinished story. I know, not promising so far, but I swear the following news makes it better.  
So one of my oldest stories but also one of my favourites. It has been languishing in developement hell for a very long time. Mostly cause I realised that Max's voice was totally off by chapter six, which is when it starts to get interesting.  
So recently, in an attempt to get my muse working again so that I could write something other than prompt responses, enjoyable as that is, I decided to reread Hope in hopes (no pun intended) to get back into the swing of the story. And I realised something pretty interesting, namely that if I was writing that story from scratch it would be longer. Much longer. The revised version of chapter one is now almost twice as long as the original and I am not done yet.  
So, as I was saying I am rewriting this. It is slightly slow going, as I still prefer to write everything by hand, before committing it to the computer. Old-fashioned of me I know. Chapter a week sounds about right. Especially since I have some spare time coming up.  
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did and do writing it. And if you are so kind as to send me a shout-out, well I will be really grateful. And very pleased. Reviews have been known to make me dance about the place like a chipmunk on ecstacy. Or so I have been told.  
Incidentally the titles all (and yes I mean all) come from lines in Emily Dickinson poems. If you are interested in knowing which ones, cause I flatter myself to think that each poem (and I don't repeat myself neither) is relevant to the chapter it heads, then tap me and I will let you know. You know, on the off chance, that you can't find them yourself. :)

_Hope_

_Prologue: The Thing with feathers  
_  
The steel door to the cell swung open and a body was thrown in, landing on the ground with a bone-deep groan of pain.

Two eyes watched from the corner, glinting in the shadows, their owner unsure if this was another ruse to break her, another scheme thought up by the bitch who ruled this living nightmare.

Groaning, trembling arms tried to push up the body, muscles clenching in remembered pain. He'd be damned before he let the bitch feel the satisfaction of breaking him. Hazel eyes burned with the need to cry, but soldiers never cried.

The broken woman watched the man try to control the body betraying his every thought. Long supressed feelings of need rose to the surface of her scarred heart. The need to help, to comfort and be comforted. Involuntarily a hand reached out only to freeze when the movement caused flashing hazel eyes to swing up and meet wary brown ones.

"Who are you?"

Every morning the woman and the man were separated and taken away. Away to be tortured, driven to the edge of reason, where sanity slips away, sliding through weak and broken fingers.

Every evening the woman and the man were thrown back into the cell, left alone, but together.

Every night the woman and the man helped each other past the pain, sharing whispered confessions about nothing in particular, until the comforting turned to something else, the need to touch and feel something besides the harsh torture inflicted on them in the daylight hours. Soft moans filled the velvet darkness of the cell, cries quickly silenced, two lost souls finding something new, something pure to help them through the sunlight.

But somebody was watching, somebody was always watching.

"Madam. Operation successful. The subject is pregnant."

The woman allowed herself a brief smile of triumph. She always got what she wanted. "Find a surrogate. If we loose this child." She paused and pinned the subordinate to the wall with the force of her will alone. "Well, you don't want to know what will happen in that case."

Her gaze turned back to the screens. Her voice soft as she spoke the final verdict. "Oh, and make them forget."

"Yes, Director Renfro, Ma'am.

The woman and the man did forget. Forgot themselves and each other in a haze of red light until all that was left was what she allowed them to keep.

Forgot everything except the vague feeling that not all was as it should be. That something vital had been torn from their lives.

The steel door to the cell swung open and a young man waltzed in, hazel eyes flashing with humour.

Wary brown eyes watched him from the corner of the room.

"Hi, I'm your breeding partner."

Brown eyes flashed and hazel eyes found themselves slammed into the other side of the cell by one well-placed kick.

"In your dreams." Brown eyes stated firmly.


	2. Book One: A plank in Reason, broke

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: So in my efforts to rewrite Hope, this chapter has added another 30 to its word count, as well as being rearranged until almost nothing is where it was first time round.

Chapter 1: A plank in Reason, broke

__

You held what we were looking for

Max stood up in the hill, gazing at the funeral pyre that was Manticore. It truly was a pretty blaze, long licks of flame rising from the labs, the odd explosion as volatile gas cylinders succumbed to the heat, sending sparks into the starry night sky.

"Well I guess you did it, 452"

Max glanced to the side at the man standing next to her. She felt a twinge when she realised that she had robbed him of the only home he had ever known.

"_We_ did it. And my name is Max." She stuck out a hand and quirked a smile. "Nice to meet you."

Her partner in crime grinned and shook it. "Well, I'm called Alec."

"Just Alec?"

Alec grinned and winked at her. "Yeah, just Alec. Like Madonna and Cher."

Max quirked an eyebrow. "How'd you-"

"Common Verbal Usage 101, Maxie."

"Don't call me Maxie." She swatted his arm, then turned back to look once more at the burning Manticore, the sight oddly compelling.

Alec shuffled his feet beside her, then pointed down towards the droves of transgenic making their way through the forest.

"So. What'cha gonna do with all the strays you picked up?"

Max gaped at him. "What am _I_ gonna do?"

"Well, yeah. You set 'em free on an unsuspecting world. So you're kinda responsible for them." He turned to walk away.

Max gaped at his retreating back and then jogged to catch up. "Hey, you helped you know!"

They were still bickering on just who was responsible for what when they caught up with the first of the Manticore refugees.

Max gasped as she bolted upright in bed, visions of fire and heat and flames dancing before blurry eyes.

"Where is it?" She frantically patted down the sheets around her body, heart fluttering its way free from her chest, hands shaking while swiping tears from blurry eyes.

"Where is it? Where's it gone?" Max tore through her room searching for she knew not what before finally collapsing on her bed and into the arms of sleep.

Cries of protest rang down the street marking the path of two bicycles hurtling down the route as fast as possible. Angry shoppers and loiterers jumped out of the way, some more successfully than others as the riders continued blissfully onwards, disregarding the chaos they left in their wake.

"Come on Alec. We're gonna be late!" Max yelled over her shoulder, barely managing to turn the bike before it rammed an old woman with a pram full of cans. Vaguely she heard her almost victim shout profanities after her.

Alec laughed, hazel eyes flashing as he followed: "Don't know why _I _should worry. Normal would forgive me just about anything. You however…" He let his comment taper off.

Max smirked: "Well, Montycora, I don't know about everything but I'm sure he would be willing to negotiate if you turn up in that toga costume."

Alec's bike wobbled. "That's a low blow, Maxie. Is it my fault everybody falls for my good looks and charm."

Max suppressed a smile: "Come on then charmboy. Let's get to work before Normal fries both our asses and even your 'Get out of trouble free' cards don't do the job anymore."

As they drove on, scattering hapless pedestrians in their wake, both transgenics smiled.

In the month since their destruction of Manticore some normality had returned to their lives. The transgenics had holed up in a desolate part of Seattle, fondly known as Terminal City. The more esoteric members of their little family did their best to make the place defensible as well as moderately liveable, while the X-5s and X-6s were slowly getting jobs and spreading through the city.

Slowly but surely things were getting better, Max finally working on getting the family she had always wanted. The family she had fled Manticore with might be lost to her, having disappeared once more, but the ache was getting less from day to day.

Life was good.

Helplessly, weak as a kitten, Max clutched the toilet bowl as another convulsion wracked her petite frame. Bile rose in her throat only to be spit out.

Shaking fingers reached up to push sweat-drenched hair from a pasty-white face.

"Boo?" Cindy's worried voice floated into the pristine silence of the room. "You okay?"

"It's open." Max managed to squeeze the words past the agony of her overly abused throat, then swallowed harshly as another bout of nausea attempted to rid her body of something no longer there.

The door creaked open and Cindy peaked in. She couldn't hold back the gasp as she saw the sorry state her best friend was in. In a flash she was beside Max, cooing softly as she wet a washcloth and laid it against Max's sweaty forehead, the other hand flushing the toilet.

"How long you been like this?"

"Coupla hours." Max mumbled.

"Hours? Why didn't you call me, Max?"

"Didn't want to wake ya."

Cindy huffed, but decided to save the reaming out for another time when her friend did not look so pitiful.

"You're sick, boo. We should take you to the doctor."

"No! No doctor. It will be better tomorrow. Goes away after a while."

Cindy thought over things and forced herself to ask: "Max, you couldn't by any chance be pregnant?"

Max gulped, fighting back another wave of nausea. "No, definitely not. You know it takes two to tango, or put a bread in the oven."

"Come again."

Max grimaced. "It's been two months since we left good old hell on earth and I haven't - um since Rafer."

"Damn, girl. It been that long?"

"Yup. No lovin for this gal." Max attempted to make a joke of it, but the feelings churning through her stomach made the gesture fall flat.

Cindy smiled, still deeply worried.

Moving slowly she got Max into a standing position, then slowly helped her back to bed. After tucking her in and placing a trashcan beside her bed, she said: "Well, there's no way you're going to work today. I'll tell Normal. If you're not better in two days we're going to the doctor, whether ya want to or not."

Max nodded feebly, turned on her side and fell into a restless sleep.

Two days later she was back on her feet.

Crash was heaving with bodies. Some filling the dance floor, swaying in the grip of the base, moving with the beat of the drums. A few were standing around the dance floor, while most of the people were watching a tall young man with hazel eyes take on anybody foolish enough to challenge him at pool.

A very few were sitting at the high tables scattered around the room, caressing cold beers, lost in thought.

"What's up, boo?" A cheerful voice interrupted Max's reverie.

"What d'ya mean?" She attempted flippancy.

"Nothing. Just, you've been staring awfully hard at your beer there. And I just thought there might be something botherin' ya. Or something really wrong with the beer."

"Haven't been sleeping well." Max mumbled just loud enough for her friend to hear .

This slightly worried O.C. Max didn't sleep much at the best of times she knew. "That virus thing still botherin' you?" She ventured.

Max considered the thought then dismissed it with a flick of her wrist. "Nah. That Manticore lab rat we picked up a few weeks ago subdued it. No real cure though. Just means that I can't kill Logan with a touch."

"You don't seem too cut up about it."

Max blinked in surprise. "What gave you the idea that I'd be really cut about it? I mean, yeah, the no-touching thing sucked big time, but it is not like we're star-crossed lovers or anything."

Now it was Cindy's turn to be surprised. "Coulda fooled me, boo. Way you were carryin on. All dinners at his place and the funky chicken dance in dream-space."

Max grew serious: "I'm not denying I was attracted to the man, but sometimes I wondered. If he hadn't caught me and offered that quid pro quo thing -"

"Would you have gotten together at all?" Cindy finished for her.

Max nodded. "And he just doesn't get it. How important these people -" She waved vaguely at the transgenics dotted throughout the room. "How important they are to me.

"We have so much to do to get organised and safe and there he is constantly asking for my help. He did his Eyes Only shit perfectly fine without me before, why can't he now?"

"I get where you're coming from, boo, really I do. So, if Logan's not the one messing with yer sleep who is?"

"Been havin' weird dreams lately, but can't seem to remember them."

Something was tickling the edge of Max's memory, just out of reach. The vague feeling that something was missing, something vital. Something that she should be remembering.

"Hey! How's my favourite girls?" Alec bounced up behind them and once again the fleeting feeling retreated to the depths of Max's mind. Alec plopped down between them and gave both girls a quick hug.

"Hey boo. How's the ripping off of innocent bystanders?"

"If they want to throw their money my way, who am I to deny them the gratification?" Alec grinned unrepentantly.

Her morose mood lifted by Alec's chipper mood, Max allowed herself a smile. The sniggered inside. Chipper made him sound like a deranged chipmunk.

O.C. outright laughed and stuck her hand out. "Well, hand over some then. The next round's on you, loverboy."

"If only." Alec quipped handing over the money. He let himself drop into the chair Cindy had just vacated, muttering something about keeping her seat warm. After a quick glance at Max, who once more seemed entranced by her rapidly flattening beer, he let his eyes scan the room, slowly becoming lost in his own thoughts.

After a time Max gazed at him, unused to this quiet side of the usually gregarious Alec. Sure he'd changed in their months away from Manticore. He'd gone from being the perfect soldier, well mostly perfect soldier, to somebody who fit in, had friends and above all a life. And she liked to think that she had some role in that, helping him find his feet.

Narrowing her eyes she gave him a careful once over. There was something else there tonight, something familiar, a shadow beneath the eyes, something lurking in the hazel depths. It called to her.

"Are you okay?" It burst out of her, causing his head to jerk up in surprise.

"Of course. I'm always alright." His customary smile was missing as he threw out his trademark phrase.

Perhaps something in Max's eyes caught his attention, as his brow furrowed even as his words faded into silence. Something reflected in her eyes, achingly familiar.

They started as O.C. laughingly plonked down a pitcher of beer, bubbling with laughter as she told of the latest honey to catch her eye. The moment was lost.

Max tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable spot in her bed. Her back ached, and she felt too hot, and in turn too cold without the sheets.

She had no idea what was bothering her, just this insane urge to be up and about. Every night for the last week she'd walked the streets of the city, restless and aware. It was ridiculous.

Huffing with disgust, Max admitted defeat once more and bounded out of bed, slipping back into the clothes she had only removed a scarce hour before.

Like a caged lion she paced the confines of her room, fiddling with her sparse belongings. She made her bed and wiped the dust from her sideboard.

Max was just contemplating doing her laundry, when she snapped out of whatever was keeping her awake. Her vision wobbled and she swayed in place as weariness swamped her like a wave. Dropping her clothes to the floor, she stumbled to her bed and let herself fall facedown on the spread.

She slipped away into the now familiar dreams of fire and flames and the knowledge that something was missing.

"Come on guys, I'm hungry." Max yelled back into JamPony. Work was finally over for the day and she couldn't wait to leave. Impatiently dancing in one spot she waited for her friends to catch up.

Cindy smiled, glad that her friend was once again becoming the girl she had met so long ago. The Max that had first come back from Manticore had walked with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Not surprising really, considering what she had been through.

Add to that her sleepless nights and strange bouts of nausea and you ended with a few very stressful months.

Thankfully the dreams and nausea had abated on their own and long nights of talking had begun to deal with the former. Things were becoming as closely back to normal as it was possible for her crazy friend.

Alec outright laughed at his friend's antics, glad the firecracker had taken the place of the subdued and sullenly reluctant prisoner he had first met. Reaching out, he ruffled her hair, surprised at the burst of warmth blossoming in his chest.

Max beamed at him, leaning into his touch ever so slightly, grabbed one of his hands and dragged him off to the diner down the road.

Smiling, Cindy followed, already contemplating what the menu might hold for the day. Supply to the town was as erratic as ever, so you never knew what it would be possible to get, but the diner was famous for being able to make a good meal out of thin air. If that meant they were scouting the black market, well she didn't care, as long as she was fed. Fortunately at that time of night the diner was never too full, but it also wasn't so late that Kathy the waitress was too tired to be friendly.

"Hey you three. What can I get'cha?" Kathy smiled at them, brown eyes twinkling behind her glasses.

Alec gestured for the girls to go first.

"What's the special today?" Cindy asked.

"We've got meatloaf and apple pie. Apples are from a tin but taste almost as good as fresh."

"Okay, I'll have that then and a beer."

"Will do." Kathy turned to Max.

"Um meatloaf, the pie. Do you have milk?" She asked hopefully, then added: "And maybe some pickles?"

Kathy smiled and nodded.

Alec gracefully bowed to the majority and also asked for the meatloaf.

The time spent waiting passed in a flash as they exchanged stories about work, the happenings in Terminal City and Sketchy's latest dumbass plans.

"Where is he anyway?" Max enquired.

Cindy burst out laughing, while Alec only just managed to control himself long enough to say: "He said he wanted a change. So he tried to die his hair purple. But he's allergic to something in the mix and now he has blue blotches all over his face."

Laughter reverberated through the café.

"My, you are a merry bunch." Kathy commented as she brought the first load of plates. Soon each of them had a plate in front of them and was digging in. Kathy's husband Andy really was a genius in the kitchen.

Max scrunched her nose. Her meatloaf didn't taste right. A quick glance at Cindy and Alec showed that they held no such reservations, tucking into their food with very much apparent joy. Max looked around searchingly, perusing the condiments arranged on the table.

Her hand darted out and grabbed the mustard and three packets of brown sugar. She just knew the white wouldn't be right. After pouring the sugar over the pickles, she added three spoonfuls of mustard and mashed it all together with her fork.

Cindy's fork stopped halfway to her mouth as she noticed what Max was doing. She turned faintly green as Max added mayonnaise to the noxious mixture and then spread it over het meatloaf.

Max tried a bite, frowned and then sprinkled everything with generous helpings of Tabasco. Humming with pleasure she tucked in. Alec and Cindy could only watch her, faintly green around the gills.

Kathy had been watching this with interested eyes and couldn't resist to ask: "Are you expecting, ducks?"

Max looked at her in complete incomprehension. "Expecting what?"

Cindy went from horizontal to vertical so fast, she almost blacked out. She gasped for air, heartbeat pulsing madly in her ears, fingers clutching her blanket to her breast.

With no idea what had woken her so suddenly from deep sleep, her eyes frantically tried to pierce the gloom of night. Her room was only very faintly illuminated by a solitary, flickering streetlight outside their building. Normally she was indifferent to the darkness, but that night her mind was conjuring up monsters and worse from the shadows and corners of her room.

Nothing real could be seen and the oppressive silence of the early hours of the night surrounded her, interrupted only once by the faint noise of a passing car on the road. Slowly her heartbeat slowed to normal and sleep tugged at her once more. It had probably only been a bad dream anyway.

On the verge of oblivion, a moan had her eyes snap open again. The sound made her blood run cold with fear as the horrors of the dark reappeared from a long forgotten childhood. With trembling fingers Cindy reached for the light on her bedside table sure that any second now a freezing hand would grab her wrist and drag her off the fate unknown. Light flooded her room, illuminating even the darkest corners and showed - nothing. Her room was empty, cosy in the golden light from the lamp.

"Don't be stupid." she chided herself, voice ringing oddly in the silence of the night. She was too old to be scared of noises in the night. And if there was something there, well it would just have to meet Cindy's wrath. That and the business end of the baseball bat she kept stashed under her bed.

Dragging a light robe around her to stave off the chill of the night, she started to explore the apartment, clicking lights on as she went, more rattled than she cared to admit.

All was quiet in the living room, entry door untouched. Maybe the noise had come from outside.

Another moan filled the flat, causing goose bumps to rise on Cindy's skin. It sounded so pained, as if all the horror in the world had been condensed into one drawn out note of agony. Seriously freaked now Cindy moved towards where she thought the sound had originated from.

"Max." She breathed, hearing clear sounds of distress coming from her best friend's room now that she was closer.

Dreading what she might find, mindful of the nightmares that had plagued her friend for months she was still unable to hold back a gasp of shock at what met her eyes once the door was fully opened.

Max huddled in the far corner of the ruins of her room. Sheets and pillows lay shredded and scattered around the room as did all her clothes and knickknacks. She was muttering to herself, slowly rocking to a beat only she heard.

Cindy was torn, on the one hand she wanted to fly over to her friend's side and find out what was happening to her, on the other she clearly remembered what had happened to the last idiot to storm up to a senseless Max. A quick kick to the head that had put him out of commission for at least five hours and had left a severe headache for a lot longer. But this was her friend, she had to help. And she had faith Max would not hurt her.

"Max? Sweetie?" Her voice was as smooth and calm as she could make it. Max did not even show a sign that she had even heard her. Remembering childhood experiences with frightened animals, Cindy switched to a continuous murmur of assurances and nonsense, slowly edging forward obliquely to Max's position.

"What's the matter, boo?" Again no response, aside from a twitch as she huddled in on herself.

"I'm just going to come a little closer, alright boo?" She was now within a few feet of Max and never in a million years would she admit how unnerved she was by Max right at that moment.

"You can't have it." A voice hissed, sounding nothing like her best friend. Max's head came up and she stared at Cindy with vacant eyes, clearly seeing not her best friend but some wraith haunting her thoughts. Cindy wasn't even sure if she was really awake.

"Max. I need you to look at me."

"Go away!" The voice was filled with venom and a generous helping of terror. "You can't get me here. No-one can get me here. There's nothing." Max's eyes slit and she snarled: "You're not getting it." With no warning she launched herself at her friend, bowling her over in a lightning move, immobilising her on the floor, hands pushing both of hers into the floor.

Max pushed her face close to Cindy's. "You're not getting it. Never again."

"Max, what the hell are you talking about?" Cindy asked, then gasped in fright as Max reared back and literally threw her across the room. A shriek tore itself from Cindy's throat as she impacted the wall hard. The force of it knocked her breath from her lungs in a rush, leaving her dazed and unable to break her fall. She crumpled to the floor, clutching her chest, shaking with shock.

Spots danced in front of her eyes as she stared across the room in the blank eyes of the soldier that wore her best friend's face. She couldn't breath, couldn't seem to force her body to move. Detachment rose in her mind as she watched Max coil in on herself in preparation for the final attack, the last strike.

Blackness rose from the edge of her vision and consciousness faded away. She would die at the hands of her friend and there was nothing she could do about it.


	3. Book One: A look of agony

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Chapter 2: A look of agony

/

/

Max's consciousness struggled to the surface, battling the inner demons threatening to hold her down. She would not give in. A tiny voice inside her whispered seductively to let the soldier out to fight the nightmares. The nightmares that had been so blissfully absent for long weeks and had now reasserted their claim on her dreams, rampaging through her mind.

Throwing memories both real and manufactured in her face, until the pain found voice in long agonised moans. It would be so much easier to fall back on ingrained customs branded into her soul by years of training. Find the threat. Eliminate the threat. As she weakened the soldier grew stronger, battling for ascendance.

'No. I'm not going to give in. I fought too hard. Learned too much to give in.' All the resilience and power of will she had built in the years as a fugitive came to the fore at the bid of their mistress, fighting back nightmares and past alike.

Slowly her senses returned, brown eyes blinking hazily taking in her wrecked room.

What the hell had happened? Nothing was where it had been, little had survived unscathed. It was like a war zone.

Complete with victims.

At the far wall of her room lay Cindy sprawled to the ground like a discarded doll. Bruises were already blossoming on her arms and in what could be seen of her face.

In a flash, Max blurred over, gently turning Cindy on her back, checking pulse and breathing, vastly relieved when both proved to be there. Very faint, but there all the same.

Cindy stirred weakly on the floor and Max raised her friend to a sitting position, cradled against her chest, one knee up to support her back as the girl gulped down panicked bouts of air, a semblance of colour slowly returning to her face.

Slowly Cindy's eyes began to flutter and then open, locking gazes with Max's eyes. Instinctively Cindy tried to get away from the threat immobilising her, arms flailing, hands weakly pushing at her captor.

Max tried to hold her arms down as gently as she could and froze. Her hands perfectly covered the bruises on Cindy's arms. Unceremoniously dropping her friend, she scrambled backwards into a corner away from Cindy, who had to hate her for what she had done.

Tears pooled in Max's eyes as she stared down at her hands, dripping onto a murderer's hands. Renfro was right, she was poison. Destroyed everything she touched. Why weren't her hands red? So much death.

So very much death.

"I'm poison."

Cindy remained lying where Max had dropped her, gasping for breath, frantically trying to suppress the panic. Everything hurt. She hadn't known a single person could hurt that much. Dimly she was aware that Max had retreated once more, but for the moment she just couldn't bring herself to care and see what had changed.

Cindy struggled with her feelings. On the one hand she wanted to run as far away as possible from this _thing_ that had tried to kill her. On the other hand she desperately wanted to help her best friend. The person who had never, not once judged her for what she was, the person that trusted her with the worst secrets and always had her back. She just wasn't sure she would be able to do it, to return the favour. She loved Max like a sister, but she needed time to get over this. She needed help.

Logan would have been the obvious first choice, but out of the question. He had never struck Cindy as being particularly accepting of Max's otherness. Granted he had been the first to know of Max's rather esoteric origins but she doubted Max would have felt the need to trust him with such an integral part of her being of her own volition.

No, phoning Logan wouldn't help at all. It would probably only make things worse. There had to be somebody else. Somebody who understood where Max came from and what she was going through.

'Alec.' Her inner voice prompted. Her first thought was to dismiss the notion. Phone Smart-Alec? Max's not-boy?

'When has he ever not been there for her?'

The thought struck her dumb. She had never thought about it but he was always there. Making Max laugh, guarding her back when Logan sent her off on one of his half-assed missions. Usually getting her out of the thick of trouble. Always there.

Fighting the need to hyperventilate in delayed reaction, she swallowed hard to get her dry throat working again. The first attempt to speak ended in a croak she was glad nobody was in the position to comment on. Clearing her throat she tried again.

"Max?" She was shocked how alien her voice sounded. But being throttled will do that to a person. "I'm phoning Alec, kay? Don't move none, baby boo."

Max appeared not to have heard her, just continued sitting in her corner, all huddled up, rubbing her hands against each other, muttering to herself.

Stumbling into the lounge on weak legs, Cindy dug out her mobile, only to realise that she didn't have Alec's number, despite the thousands of times he had proffered it. Made her wish she had taken him up on it one time.

She was just about ready to cry with frustration when her eyes lit on Max's jacket draped over the sofa. And sure enough her phone was in the left pocket where she always stashed it.

A glance through the contact list showed that Max had Alec on speed dial.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Cindy asked herself.

The phone rang seemingly endlessly and Cindy was just about to give up, when an extremely groggy voice snarled into the phone: "This had better be good Max, or I swear you're dead."

"Alec?"

Silence, then a confused question: "Who is this?"

"It's me Alec, Cindy."

"You sound nothing like Cindy."

"I don't have time for this fool." Cindy snapped.

"Oo-kay. I take it back. What's up?" Faint sounds of movement came from the other end, followed by a yawn.

"It's Max. Something's wrong. I heard these horrible moans, sounded like somebody was being tortured. So I went to check and Max was just sitting in her room." She broke off, as much because of the fear clogging her throat, as for the pain speaking caused in her chest.

"And then what?" Alec coaxed, in a gentler voice than she had ever heard him use, worry clearly apparent.

"I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong and she attacked me!" Cindy squeaked out the last, still in shock at her friend's actions. "She attacked me, Alec. Threw me clear across the room and into the wall. Was just getting ready to finish me off when I must have blacked out. "

Louder noises came from the other end and she heard movement.

"What else?" Cindy was eternally grateful that Alec didn't ask her how it was that she was still alive, fully aware of the fact that by all rights she shouldn't be. And if it hadn't been for the fact that Max had regained her senses briefly, she wouldn't be. Max would be rocking beside a cold dead body by now.

"She came back, but now she's worse than before. She's just sitting there, saying she's poison."

"I'm coming over, Cindy. Sit tight."

The dial tone hit her ear and for the first time since she woke up in terror, Cindy gave in to the hope that everything would be okay. Alec would fix it.

/

/

Alec's thoughts were going a mile a minute as he grabbed his jacket on the way out the door. Max had attacked Cindy. It was inconceivable.

He just couldn't wrap his head around it. Cindy and Max were the best friends he had ever seen in his limited time out of Manticore. It seemed impossible that Max would ever do anything to hurt Cindy and yet for some reason she had.

He drove faster than he ever had before, pushing his bike to the limit. Any other traffic was only peripherally noticed in as far as it was in the way and ignored if it wasn't. Max was in trouble.

It had to be something to do with Manticore. None of them had left that place without some serious hang-ups and Alec knew firsthand how frightening the nightmares could be. More than once in the months since his escape had he woken in a cold sweat, screams and cries ringing in his ears. He had shaken them off, just another thing his frequent bouts in reindoctrination had left him with.

"I just know those bastards are behind it! I'm gonna make them pay!" The words forced themselves past his lips, the threat floating away on the currents of the air, taking on a life of their own. And far away a group of men Alec had never met turned uneasily in their sleep.

/

/

Gasping for breath Alec stormed up the stairs to Max and Cindy's flat, heedless to the noise he was causing at that early hour of the morning. Catching himself on the jamb he knocked loudly. Impatiently shifting from foot to foot, painfully aware of the slightest sound in the darkened hallway, Alec waited for Cindy to open the door. His first thought had been to just ram down the door, but figured patience was the better part of valour for the moment. If Max had come aware in the time it had taken him to get here, he did not want to scare her back into whatever state she had been in.

Slowly the door opened a crack and he could see one of Cindy's eyes, filled with an amount of fear the gutsy brunette had never shown before. In a flash the door was thrown open and he saw her completely, gaze hardening as he took in the dark bruises already forming on her arms, perfectly detailing Max's small hands. There was also a nice bruise forming above her left eye, with just a smear of blood marring the surface. She was lucky to be alive.

He stilled in surprise when Cindy dragged him inside and threw her arms around him in a grip that would have done a transgenic proud. His arms hovered in the air for a second, unsure how to proceed, then wrapped around the brunette. After giving her a moment to compose herself, he asked: "Where's Max?"

Cindy leaned back and nodded to Max's room. Clearing her throat, she added: "Hasn't moved once since I called you."

Disbelievingly Alec watched Cindy fall apart, sobbing into his shoulder. "I don't know what to do! I want to help. I really do, but I can't go in there. I don't see Max." She gulped her terror down. "I know it's not my boo's fault, but I just can't do it."

"It's okay, Cindy. It's okay to be afraid. That's why you called me, right?"

Cindy smiled at him tremulously, shivering when a wail split the air. And just like that she was alone, as Alec blurred to the door, Cindy forgotten as his mind focussed on Max.

/

/

Alec's heart almost stopped in his chest when he first heard the oral expression of Max's pain. It held an eerie quality reminding him of the sounds that used to emanate from the psy-ops wing on the nights when the scientists had had too much time on their hands.

He blurred across the lounge, throwing open the door to Max's room, no longer caring if this might scare her into attacking him - he could probably stop her in her tracks - only wanting to get her aid as fast as possible. In his haste to run to her side he missed the mess she had made earlier that evening.

His foot tangled in the shredded remains of her comforter and sent him down hard to the floor, as if thrown. Slamming into the ground unchecked wrested a groan from his throat and he struggled to right himself.

A soft gasp reached his ear and his head snapped up, gaze locking with a pair of shocked brown eyes. He froze in position, watching with baited breath as one small, pale hand reached towards him from the shadows of the corner in a gesture of need so familiar, he could have sworn he had seen it-

Remembrance hit him like a hammer between the eyes.

/

/

__

Wary brown eyes met his, one slim hand raised in something he did not recognise having never seen comfort when offered.

"Who are you?"

/

/

__

"My name's Max. What's yours?"

A soft, derisive laugh in the dark. "Don't have one."

"That wont do. I'll call you Alec. As in Smart-Alec."

"Not that smart looking now, Max."

Silence wrapped them. A whisper of fabric as he moved closer, one hand reaching out to wrap hers.

"Can I call you Maxie?"

"Yes"

/

/

__

Thrown into the cell, he knew that she was already waiting. Sure enough as soon as the door closed, he found himself enveloped in warm arms, his own rising to drape loosely around her middle. They cried together that night, for the last shred of innocence wrested from their grasp.

/

/

__

A warm, naked body curled into his. Both knew that their night was once again over. "I don't want to leave you." she whispered, curling tighter into his body, heedless of the pain it caused her as abused muscles screamed in agony. She bit down on the urge to beg him to protect her. They had no chance. No chance to defend themselves against what was being done to them. They could only hold each other while darkness cloaked their cell.

"I'm never going to leave you." He whispered the words in fierce promise anyway, responding to her unspoken plea. "Never. Do you hear me? I'm never going to let you go. I'll take care of you. I promise."

/

/

Alec stared at the figure in the corner. It was her. There was only -

"Maxie?" The words came out as a helpless plea, begging her to remember, too. To prove that it was not all just in his head.

A small cry reached his ears and just as suddenly he found himself with a lapful of warm Max, whose hands were fluttering over his face and arms in a need to check that he was really there. That it was all real and not a figment of her imagination.

She was crying into his shoulder as his arms tightened convulsively around her, holding her tight to his chest, all the forgotten feelings bursting to the surface, making him whole again, making him loved again.

Unbeknown to him tears dripped down his cheeks and onto Max's hair, as the two revelled in the feeling they had never known they'd missed so desperately. A part that had been missing from them so long finally slotting back where it belonged, making them almost whole again.

/

/

Cindy stood in the doorway watching the two lost souls reunite, whatever had caused Max to act so out of character forgotten for the moment. They looked so right and she could only wonder why they had shown no reaction before this, had acted like they had never even met before. And once again, the answer that prompted so many other questions was one word. Manticore.

She wasn't stupid. Could recognise PTSD when she saw it. Once, in a quiet conversation late at night, Max had alluded to some of the things that had been done to them all by those sickos. Making somebody lose their memory was probably the least of it.

The thought made her shiver, which in turn reminded her of how much she hurt. There was nothing she could do for Max at that point, still having to deal with the emotional fallout of being attacked by her friend.

Turning away, she resolved to head back to bed. Alec seemed to have the situation well in hand and she needed the rest. Well that and some Tylenol. Limping slightly Cindy walked away.

/

/

A long hour later, Max and Alec were curled together on her bed, unwilling to be separated by even an inch, as if afraid that if they did, they would be separated once more, forget each other once more. Max broke the silence first.

"I'm sorry, Alec. I'm so sorry. I've been so hard on you. I should have realised." He felt more than heard her start to cry again, hating the fact that they were put in this position in the first place.

"It's okay, Maxie. You didn't know." his arms tightened around her, pulling her in even tighter. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I didn't want to leave. I failed you."

Max's head snapped back, a familiar look of fury on her face. "You did not fail me, Alec!" Her voice whipped out. "There was nothing we could do. It was them!" Her voice turned to an ugly hiss. "Manticore." The reason for and bane of their existence.

"Bastards!" Alec stated with conviction. "Good thing we burnt that place to the ground."

Max snorted and nodded.

Gazing up into his face, her demeanour softened as she reacquainted herself with features once again as familiar as her own, more dear to her than even her patchwork family.

"Alec." The emotion in her voice wrapped around his heart, lightening a load he hadn't known was there. "I lost you."

Her eyes filled with unguarded tears, lip trembling with emotion, everything she felt clearly painted on her face for him to see. Unguarded and unafraid.

Alec barely managed to hold back his own tears and say: "Never." With a sigh they came together in the twilight, lips pressed together, bodies intertwining, relearning the feel of each other that was cruelly wrested away from them. Broken souls finally reunited with their mate, becoming one. Soft moans filled the velvet darkness of the room, cries silenced against shoulders, two lovers reclaiming their own, till sunlight pressed against the shutters of the room, heralding the dawn of a new day.

/

/

Cindy turned onto her back painfully slowly, muscles protesting every tiniest increment of movement, unwilling to let her continue her sleep.

'Damn. What the hell happened ta me?'

Her hand went to her throat and she winced as the memory of the previous night reasserted itself. Fear attempted to swamp her but was ruthlessly suppressed. Something was wrong with her boo and she was damn well going to find out what and then she was going to put the smack down on whoever was responsible. Nobody messed with her boos without paying the price.

"Cindy!" Alec's panicked cry tore through the fragile illusive tranquillity of the flat, the morning's peace shattering.

Stumbling slightly Cindy took off at a dead run for Max's room, coming to an abrupt stop as she struggled to take in what her eyes insisted she was seeing.

Alec was trying to subdue a convulsing Max. Cindy could see the deep scratches the girl had already scored into his arms. Fluttering eyelids showed only the whites of her eyes, while spasms bowed her body strongly enough to lift Alec's body with hers. And then there was the blood slowly spreading on the sheet beneath her. A slow pool of red on the white of the sheet.

Alec looked at Cindy with eyes made wide by panic, before clamping down on his emotions. In a precise voice he said: "Left pocket of my jacket. Speed dial two. Tell Dix to prep the infirmary. We're coming in hot and Max is haemorrhaging."

Cindy nodded, desperate to help. For the second time that day she found herself contacting a transgenic in order to gain help for her best friend. And for the second time a groggy voice threatened her with dire consequences.

"Alec! Nothing is important enough for you to wake me up at stupid o'clock. I'm so gonna -"

"Dix! Shut up. It's Max's friend Cindy. Max is haemorrhaging. Alec says to get yo ass in gear and prep the lab. We're coming in."

The snappy voice had the desired effect.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Go!" Her finger was already on the off button when she heard: "Gone, ma'am."

Cindy returned to Alec's side. "Done. One question though. How are we gonna get to TC? Don't have a car."

Alec looked at her with blank eyes. "Gonna steal one."

She nodded and managed to hold back a scream, as Alec grit his teeth, mouth set in a determined hard line. Taking a deep breath, he let go of Max and then snapped out a precisely calculated punch that knocked Max out cold and had her slumping back to the sheets.

His shoulders hunched, Alec gently wrapped her unresponsive body in the fairly clean top blanket. He started when Cindy laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly.

She met his haunted look with a steady one of her own.

"You did the right thing. Let's go."

/

/

At that time of day TC was still mostly asleep, a fact Alec was eternally grateful for. It wouldn't do to have to face too many questions. Not that they had any idea what the questions were let alone the answers. All they knew so far was that Manticore had messed with their heads, erasing all memory of their first few weeks together. It did sort of explain however why Alec had always found himself drawn to Max. He'd somehow known that here was the other half of his soul, if he could just find the key.

Although he detested the way in which that key had finally unlocked the missing part of his mind, he couldn't hate it. It had brought him back Max. Though it only accelerated things, he was sure that some way Max and he would have found their way back to each other without external prompting. But that train of thought was obsolete now. Things had moved beyond them.

Tiredly he glanced over at Cindy. After arriving at TC and Max had been wheeled off, she had demanded answers about their weird behaviour. Although not exactly the kind of person to spill his emotions, Alec felt she had the right to know. So he had told her everything he had remembered, right up to the last time he had seen Max. Cindy had first been shocked and then had cried a little for them, hugging him as strongly as she could. Alec had frozen up first and then returned the hug, glad he had a friend like her. At long last though the more or less sleepless night caught up with her and she had stretched out over a couple of chairs and promptly fallen back into an exhausted sleep. He would have to wake her soon as he wanted Dix to check her out, too. See if Max had inadvertently caused more damage than it seemed, although the fact Cindy was still walking and talking spoke for the fact that something had held Max back. If she had been truly insensate, acting merely on instinct, she would have broken Cindy's neck without breaking a sweat.

Dix was still in there with Max, alone after, throwing Alec out an hour before. The hovering had been driving him insane, but he had promised to come out as soon as he knew anything. Alec had made him swear on pain of death.

Just as Alec started his one hundred and fourth round of the room, he heard the door open. A faint noise from the corner showed that Cindy had heard as well and was wearily rousing herself.

Dix slowly walked in the room, knowing full well now what the messenger must feel like when he had particularly bad news.

"Hey, Alec. Cindy." he nodded at the woman.

"Spill. What's up with Max?" Alec demanded, hands fisted at his sides.

Dix swallowed: "Why don't you come on through. We've managed to stabilise Max. Staunched the bleeding. She's lucky this happened after the blood drive last week and that all X-5s are universal donors. Well when I say stabilise I mean that the seizures stopped as suddenly as they apparently started. Which was a very good thing all things considered. Anyway, she's awake now, so why don't you come on through and we can all talk about this together."

"So you found something out?" Alec asked.

Dix shifted uncomfortably. "I would rather discuss this with Max present." He turned and led the way to the little room that had been transformed into an infirmary.

/

/

As soon as she caught sight of Alec Max's eyes glowed as if a candle had been lit from the inside. The vague shadow of sorrow haunting her for the last months was gone. Weakly she patted the spot on the bed beside her and Alec was only too happy to slide in beside her, arranging her so she lent against his chest, one of his arms holding her in place around the waist. Cindy smiled indulgently, successfully masking the uncomfortable feeling she got from being close to Max for the first time since the incident.

Dix looked at the picture presented to him. He had no idea what had changed in the last twenty-four hours. What had happened to turn Max and Alec from close acquaintances with nothing more in common than the shared experiences at Manticore to lovers. Their body language was patently obvious to somebody as well-versed in noting the slightest nuances of emotion as he was. Well, up until ten minutes ago he had only had Alec's behaviour to go on and hadn't that just been an eye opener of cosmic proportions? At first he had wondered if maybe somebody had decided to play a joke on him. The way Alec had hovered anxiously as they stabilised Max's condition was not the behaviour of a casual acquaintance or even that of a close friend. And he had Cindy to compare with.

He had wondered, but the blood tests came up negative for heat hormones, plus he would have noticed it anyway. It didn't affect him the way it did the X5's thank God, but he would have noticed none the same. Gave a nice buzz in his opinion. So something else was responsible and he had the sinking suspicion that it had something to do with the absolutely shocking discoveries they had made while treating Max. And he really wasn't looking forward to what he had to tell.

"Okay, before we go into what happened to Max I'm gonna have at give you some background stuff."

"Is that really necessary, Dix?" Alec asked, impatient to learn what was wrong with Max. Swiftly Max laid her hand on his arm, rubbing in slow circles, the action calming Alec down almost instantly. She smiled up at him weakly and whispered: "It's okay. Dix has his reasons I presume."

Dix nodded. "Yeah. Thanks Max. Anyway the problem is that we don't know a lot about our physiognomies. Not exactly something they were willing to teach us at Manticore. Held those cards really close to their chests. And the database went kablooie with the rest of the base. Couldn't be avoided. The disk you guys brought back from Renfro helped, once we got past the insane encryption. But that's basically just letters. We know why some DNA was spliced in but nobody really wrote in what the effects of interaction would be."

The data dump Eyes Only managed to intercept is nowhere near organised enough for us to use a simple search algorithm. We're basically shooting in the dark.

He sighed: "But that is neither here nor there. And I am not sure it would help us anyway with what happened to you."

"What happened to me?" Max asked fearfully, already feeling the answer, burrowing into Alec's arms for reassurance, fingers interlaced. Cindy also had an idea what might have happened but really, really hoped she was wrong, both for Max's sake and Alec's. It was not as if they hadn't already suffered enough in their short lives. Suffered more than any person she'd ever met or heard of.

Dix swallowed and decided to just come out and say it. There was no easy way to say it anyway. Moving his chair closer to the bed, he let the sympathy and grief he felt for them rise to the surface and colour his tone.

"Max? Did you know you were pregnant?"

Max went deathly-white as Cindy exclaimed in protest, all her worst fears confirmed.

"Was?" Max asked in a tiny voice, begging him to tell her that she had misheard, that he was lying, anything to-

"You miscarried the baby two hours ago. That's what caused the seizure. From what we have established the baby had some genetic flaws, not uncommon in our medical history. You would have lost it sooner or later anyway, but the stress of your episode last night coupled with the emotional trauma accelerated the process and hastened the miscarriage."

Max let Dix's voice wash over her, not one word registering past the fact that she had lost her baby. Had lost _their_ baby.

Dix braced himself. There was more. Reaching out he laid his hand on Max's arm to get her attention, hating himself for having to put even more pain on her fragile shoulders. Having to inflict more agony on two people that he considered friends. But they had the right to know.

"There's more."

"More?" Alec managed to get past the icy fist clutching his insides, that made it difficult to breath, difficult to talk, difficult to do anything bar hold on to the woman in his arms for all he was worth and hope that they would simply wake up in her bed and find that it had all been a dream.

"Yes, there's more. We did an ultrasound and found evidence that Max was pregnant with twins. Another thing not uncommon at Manticore. Most of us have twins. Must have to do with the animal cocktail encouraging multiple births." He barely managed to stop himself from going off on a medical lecture. Going into medical details was his way of coping, that if he could somehow find the right words and make everybody understand he could stop these things from happening. But that was not what Max and Alec needed right now.

"The baby Max lost tonight was twelve weeks into gestation. The remnants we found of the other are nothing else. Just remnants. Indicating that either Max lost it much earlier - unlikely - or that it was removed. I can't tell you how that could be done or if it is even possible, but that is what the evidence points to.

"NO! You're lying!" It burst from Max in a primal wail as she defensively clutched her waist. "No, no, no, no, no. You have to be lying. This isn't happening to us." She turned her ashen face up to Alec's. "Tell him he's wrong. Please." She was caught in the worst nightmare she could have imagined. Not only had she tried to kill her best friend, but she had lost their baby. No babies, plural. One taken from her by nature and the other wrested from her womb unknowing. Her thoughts raced in circles, unable to find a reason or even some form of - something for her to hold onto. Alec. Alec was there and he would know what to do. She needed him.

Alec could only stare down at her beloved face blankly, a thousand emotions racing through him, one worse than the other. He'd failed her. Back in that hellhole he'd sworn he would let nothing happen to her. That he would protect her - his mate. And then he hadn't even managed to hold onto her memory. He'd failed her and their child. No, their children.

Despair welled up in him from a seemingly never-ending source and he couldn't stand it anymore. He'd failed her, failed, failed -

Only just managing to restrain himself, he gently laid Max back on the bed, avoiding her clinging hands and her instinctive move to hold him by her side. Fighting the urge to just hold on and never let go. But he had failed her once already. Staring at Cindy and Dix, both regarding him with confused eyes, he tried to talk, but no words would come. His mouth snapped shut and he stormed from the room.

The last thing he heard was the heartbroken wail of his mate.

"Alec! Don't leave me! Don't leave me again."

/

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/

A/N: And this where chapter two ends. Aren't I evil?

Seriously now, onto the stuff I have changed. Obviously almost everything to do with Cindy's injuries. I recently did a refresher First Aid course and was reminded how sensitive a human's neck is. A lot can go wrong if you it the right spot. And I figured that there is no way Cindy would survive Max throttling her, even if it is aborted fairly early. There is just no logical reason for it. So I changed it to her being thrown clear across the room. That way we have shortness of breath and maybe a cracked rib, but nothing as dire as having a smashed hyroid bone (Don't you just love Bones). Probably spell that wrong, but who cares.

Really tough, that is a cosmetic change, nothing more. Same with Dix's medical speech. I am not 100 happy with that as of yet, but so far how to make it better escapes me. I need him to lay out a few things for later. And exposition has to go somewhere.

One big changed is very close to my heart though. And that is the whole nickname thing. If you remember back to the beginning of chapter one, it had Max and Alec standing on the hill and he calls her Maxie, only to be slapped down with her standard 'Don't call me Maxie." In the original version of this (Still available on ffnet, by the way. For a while anyway), Alec calls her princess while they are locked up together. And that is what he calls her when he regains his memories. It didn't really seem to fit though. Something about that always struck me as cumbersome and clunky.

Then, while rewriting this, I though: "What about Maxie?"

It makes much more sense, cause it harkens back to the fact that only family and loved ones call Max Maxie. And this way I could hearken back to that exchange that started chapter one. I like the extra layer it gives their time together at Manticore and shows the differences between before and after.

Incidentally I was going to split this chapter down the middle and end it when he wraps her up in a bundle to take her to TC.

Oh and the punch is new too.

A lot is going to change with this, in large part due to some reviews I have received and some chats with Shay. I realised that there are many, many unanswered questions. So many that this will not end where I thought it would. Which was chapter eight I think. Unwritten Chapter Eight I might add.

I have some ideas I can't lay out here without spoiling things, but let me know what you think about it all. And you never know, you might make me think and change things. Has been known to happen after all.

Oh, yeah and crogos I apologise if I dissapointed you in not killing Cindy. I need her though. 


	4. Book One: After great pain a formal

Disclaimer: Nothing's changed. Dark Angel belong to Cameron and consorten. Only the plot is mine.

A/N: Wanted to change the POV for once. I just love Cindy, doesn't take any crap from anyone. But it has been hard going and I hope you forgive me if I didn't quite catch her, I did my best.

It just occurred to me that just as with all my other fics this takes place at some indeterminate time in season two. I usually try to set the scene with a sentence or two, f.ex. the line in chapter 1 about the virus. Not sure if Joshua will make an appearance. I'm not very good at describing absolute innocence.

Another thing is that this is getting very difficult to write. (It doesn't help that I would rather lie at the pool, but then that's what notebooks are for.) I have the layout, as mentioned before, but it is tough going. There is definitely something to be said for summer hiatus.

Dedicated to a good friend of mine who in a very sad way first got me thinking about this story.

Chapter Three: After great pain a formal feeling comes

Two days had passed since Dix had dropped the bombshell that had destroyed the foundations on which Alec and Max had built their fragile lives and Alec had yet to return from wherever he had run to. He hadn't shown up at work or any of his other usual hangouts.

Cindy didn't want to believe it for a second but it seemed as if Alec had bailed. Logan had so persistently supported that theory that Cindy had eventually chucked him out of Max's infirmary room just to shut up his yammering. Then she had told him that if he really wanted to help Max like he always said he did, he should get his ass in gear and find Alec. Not knowing all the particulars, Cindy not being inclined to and Max in no position to enlighten him, he had bitched quite a bit but eventually succumbed to Cindy's superior will and left. Hopefully to at least provide some help.

There was only one good thing to come from this whole disaster in Cindy's opinion. Faced with a Max who had for the first time ever truly lost it, crying as if her world had ended, Cindy had no time to feel uncomfortable around her or to be afraid. Her boo needed her, was falling apart with every minute Alec wasn't by her side, all the old insecurities Manticore and Renfro had indoctrinated into her coming to the fore. Max had always been the one with the plan, whether it was how to save Sketchy's ass from the Russians or a scheme to get in contact with her lost relatives. And yet now she lay there, completely unable and unwilling to do anything but fall apart.

"It's my fault. It's all my fault." Max muttered only half asleep. Cindy repressed her first instinct which was to tell her to stop being a fool, in favour of finding out what Max was trying to convince herself of. She was getting stuck somewhere and Cindy was going to help her out.

"What d'ya mean, sweetie?"

"Renfro was right." Max stated monotonously. "I am poison."

Cindy gaped at her. This she hadn't expected. "An since when do we care what that bitch has to say?"

Max blinked at her. "She said I'm poison. That I kill everything I touch and she's right. Ben's dead because of me. Zack killed himself for me. I almost killed Logan. And now I've lost my baby. My precious little baby. I'll never see it born, never hold its hand. Never teach it how to kick ass. It's all just gone." Her voice broke down into sobs, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of her grief.

Cindy reached out to stroke Max's hair, lightly petting the dark tresses. Her friend stilled, freezing beneath her touch as an animal does when cornered, then violently jerked away, turning her back to the room. Cindy's hand hovered in thin air before dropping to her lap. Her shoulders slumped. How was she supposed to help Max if the girl didn't even want her with her.

"You should go, Cindy." Max's voice held no inflection whatsoever. "Before I hurt you, too."

'You already have.' Cindy thought despondently, then rallied. If Max wasn't gonna listen to her, then she was damn well gonna drag Alec's sorry ass back from wherever he was. 'An' his whole I'm superior human Manticore shit aint gonna help him none either.' Cindy thought, stomping out the door.

The X-6 nurse outside took one look at her face and shivered, supremely glad Cindy wasn't out for her blood and with a good idea who she was going after. The nurse was glad somebody who wouldn't take no for an answer was finally going after Max's mate . Alec might not realise it but his place was at Max's side. The girl was spiralling deeper into depression, fear feeding on fear, barely holding on by a thread, with nobody to provide a port in the storm. That was the whole point of mating. The knowledge that you had one person to watch your back no matter what grounded you better than anything else. Reminded you what you fought for, what you were willing to die for and what you were willing to live for.

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The door to command slammed back on its hinges, bouncing against the wall. Cindy stalked into the room, eyes flashing, pinning the assembled transgenics to their seats as surely as if she had run around the room with a nail gun.

Self-consciously some of them, previously lounging in chairs, straightened and pulled their feet off the tables.

"Where is he?" Cindy snapped in a voice that would have done one of their old drill sergeants proud. A chorus of mumbles did little to lessen her ire. "Don't be playin' me, fools!" She warned them. "I'm not buyin' the whole don't know where he is bull no more. You honestly want me to believe that y'all with your heightened senses and superior everything haven't managed to find one man?"

A couple transgenics flushed, unable to meet her gaze.

"Hah! Ah knew it. So why hasn't he hauled ass back here?"

Dix mumbled something, clearly afraid to garner her attention.

"Speak up, cyclops. Ah don't have all day."

"We've found him. But he doesn't want to come."

"Doesn't wanna -" Cindy flipped. "You mean to tell me that you knew where he was and let my friend cry her eyes out. Thinking he's gone forever when YOU. KNEW. ALL. THIS. TIME!" The transgenics shuffled their feet unable to answer.

"Transgenic or no. Ah should put the smack down on all yer asses."

"We've sent five people." Dix managed to stutter. "He flat-out ignored them all."

Cindy raised one finely shaped eyebrow, her disgust clearly apparent to the entire room. "Never send a man to do a woman's job." she muttered. "So, where is he?"

"Down in a pub, dockside, called the Flying Dutchman." Dix was supremely glad he wasn't in Alec's shoes right then and there, but felt obliged to add: "He's an X-5. You can't go down there and drag him back by his ear."

Cindy levelled a volcanic look in his direction. "Watch me!"

And with that she stalked out the room leaving behind a bunch of transgenics sagging with relief.

"Reminded me of Sergeant Harris there for a second. Almost jumped to attention." One of them mumbled to a chorus of groans.

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The Flying Dutchman wasn't as much of a dive as Cindy had expected. Granted it was down in the docks, a place she normally wouldn't be seen dead in, but the place looked in good repair. Of course her sense of safety was helped along by the fact that Dix had seen fit to send out two transgenics with her, no doubt reasoning that if Max found out he had let something happen to her best friend she would rouse herself long enough to make him severely regret that fact. Mole had added the snide remark that if she insisted on going after Alec and having her ass handed to her on a plate, the least they could do was make sure she got to him in one piece.

Tilting her head slightly, Cindy braced herself, before giving the door a push and entering the lion's den,almost immediatelygiving an extremely girly shriek as a body was thrown through the window next to her. One of her shadows nudged the body with his foot, before muttering: "Out cold."

Cindy looked at him incredulously, down at the man lying at her feet and then back into the impassive faces of the transgenics hovering protectively over her.

"Right then." she stated firmly. "Let's go in." And without further ado she slammed the door back open and walked into bedlam.

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She couldn't believe her eyes, the bar was trashed and getting more so by the moment. Men were fighting everywhere, laying into each other with single-minded almost clinical concentration. She could make out the five transgenics Dix had sent out, some because she seen them before around TC and some because somebody that size shouldn't be able to hold their own against five men. It didn't look like an anti-transgenic thing however as everyone was laying into anyone close enough to reach. It was the most democratic brawl Cindy had ever had the misfortune to observe.

And there at the end of the bar in a little bubble of silence sat Alec, nursing a bourbon. The brawl did not reach as far as him, not that Cindy was in any way surprised. An icy calm so cold you could have chilled beer with it came off him in almost visible waves warning all and sundry to keep well clear or suffer the consequences, none of which would be pleasant. As Cindy watched Alec tossed back the last of the liquid in his glass and lifted a single finger to signal for another.

She'd found Alec. Now all she had to do was get to him through the seething sea of humanity roiling at her feet. Well that and get the fool to come back to TC with her. Her lip set in a thin line, disapproval radiating from her body with such force the brawlers slowly had the feeling their mothers and third-grade teachers were in the room with them. One by one they stopped fighting, sheepishly and guiltily shuffling from foot to foot, before righting the chairs and sitting back down. Within minutes the brawl was over as the fighters ordered each other new drinks and did their best to appear harmless and innocent, pretending that they had not just been at each others throats for the sheer pleasure of letting off steam. No mean feat for six foot sailors with more ink tattooed into their bodies than a writer used in a year.

Cindy's eyes swept the now orderly room.

"Damn right."

She stalked forward to the bar, blithely ignoring her two bodyguards who were fiercely debating behind her back whether or not they could convince her to watch their backs on their next mission because everybody would be too scared of her to lift a finger in anger.

Cindy plopped down into the seat next to Alec, signalled for a beer and waited for him to acknowledge her. She was halfway through the rather good beer, before he deigned to say anything.

"What are you doing here?" Alec's voice held no inflection, flat, cold and deliberately uninterested.

Cindy snorted. "Wrong question, boo. The real question is what the heck are you doing here?"

"Drinking" Alec snuck a look at her from the corner of his eye, the soldier's mask sliding just long enough to show the pain swirling behind hazel eyes. Then his features carefully returned back to neutral. "I was enjoying the solitude."

Cindy took another sip of her drink, more because she needed time to gather her thoughts than anything else. She had been fully prepared to drag Alec's ass back where it belonged whether he wanted to or not, but the happy go lucky man she knew was in so much pain it made her heart ache and her mind revaluate her plan of action. She could see his pain in his deliberately blank stare. It was evident in every tensed line of his body. Here was somebody who had been hurt and played with far beyond what would have driven the average person into screaming insanity. Both her boos were lost. One spiralling into depression loosing contact with the world around her, the other retreating back into something he hated, forging himself back into an unfeeling soldier. A coping mechanism nothing more.

"Alec?"

No response.

"Alec? You need to come back with me."

Again not a flicker to show that he had even heard her, only a raised finger asking for another scotch.

"She needs you."

This did garner a response, even though it was not the one she wanted. "No, she really doesn't."

"Don't you go telling' me what my boo does or doesn't need." She snapped.

Again no real response, although Alec did grip his glass so tight his knuckles went white and Cindy was afraid it would shatter.

"Don't do this to her." Cindy implored. "Don't be doin' this to yourself."

"I'm not doing anything." Alec growled without looking at her. "That's the problem. Didn't do a damn thing when they threw us together. Should've tried to escape. Didn't try to stop them from ripping her from my arms, cutting into her, taking our-" His voice broke along with Cindy's heart. She watched silently as he tried to compose himself. "Didn't stop them from taking our child - our baby. Couldn't save either of our children. And now they are both gone. One, last night in blood and pain and the other months ago when we burnt Manticore to the ground and I didn't know. Was too weak to fight them. Too weak to protect my mate and our babies."

He stopped once again and all Cindy could do was stare at him and let the tears roll down her face as for the first time she faced up to their loss, let it hit her in its entirety, what had been done to them, what had been taken from them, their past, their present and their future. Alec's quiet voice jolted her back to bar.

"I failed them. Max is better off without me." He lowered his head in defeat.

"No, she's not. She needs you now more than ever."

Again no response as Alec sank back in on himself. However Cindy's next words snapped him out of his funk.

"She's dying, Alec. You're killing her. You're killing each other." Cindy was done playing nice. "She's sinking, just giving up, thinking you blame her." She grabbed Alec's arm and dragged him off his chair. "It's not your fault those monsters messed with your heads or took your babies. There was NOTHING you could do. They would have gotten what they wanted one way or another anyway." Her voice turned into an angry hiss. "But I can tell you one thing. If you don' get your fool ass in gear, she will fade away. And that will be your fault. And there is nowhere on God's green earth you could hide where I wouldn't find you and make you pay."

Alec looked at her in abject misery; Cindy's words having reached him where no amount of cajoling had. His shoulders sagged, misery seeping into features.

"Why does she need me? I'm a screw-up. I can't do anything right." Cindy's heart went out to him and she gathered his unresisting form into her arms for a tight hug, realising perhaps for the first time that Alec hadn't truly faced up to his loss yet, just sequestered it into a corner of his mind, locked in a box, using the only coping mechanism Manticore had seen fit to give him.

"The only thing I'm good at is killing people." Alec mumbled into her hair.

Cindy pushed him away slightly, uncomfortable with the setting that had been chosen for this conversation, yet knowing that she had no choice, they had to have it now or not at all. If she waited, or tried to drag Alec back to the infirmary then that would be the end, there would be no other chance to get this out in the open. And she trusted the two transgenics that had come with her to keep the rest of the bar away from them. So far it seemed to be working, their evil glares keeping the clientele at bay. "Alec, you are not a killer." She forestalled him as he automatically attempted to protest. "No listen to me, nobody is born a killer. Yes, Manticore trained you to be the perfect assassins, did their best to make you think that that was the only thing you were good for and the only destiny you were ever going to have, but now it's different. You have a choice now, you and Max gave each other and the rest of the transgenics a choice and a chance. The chance to overcome the training Are you going to let Manticore dictate the rest of your life, believe it when they want you to believe that you are useless so they can control you or are you going to make a choice. It's up to you, here and now."

Alec looked at her speechlessly, a thousand and one thoughts racing through his head as the training of decades battled with all he had done, learned and seen in the meantime, all that had been taught to him. Cindy was right, it did come down to one choice, Manticore or Max. His past or his future. And in the end it was an easy choice after all.

"Let's go." He jumped up from his chair, face still grim after all that had happened in the previous days, but the load on his shoulders had considerably lightened. Cindy smiled at him, and followed him out, the transgenics falling in line behind them.

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Alec knew that the hard part had been the decision he had had to make in the Flying Dutchman. The decision to come back into Max's life, to get past years of conditioning and reach out to the one person in all the world that made him feel whole, wanted, loved. She had been his guiding light for such a long time. Every night in that hellhole, when the scientists had done their best to break him and admit to something he had no hand in, she had been the only thing keeping him going. The knowledge that when they threw him back into their cell with too little food and water she would be waiting. No matter how horrible their quarters were, she made them home, simply by being there. Everything else faded into the distance, the cold and damp, the underlying fear left unacknowledged that every night might be their last night.

And even though he hadn't remembered, the vague knowledge that his soul mate was somewhere out there had been enough to keep him going, keep him going until the day Renfro had sent him intoa traitor's cell to be her breeding partner. How the bitch must have laughed, maybe saw it as a second chance to make them suffer even more. After all she must have known Max had been pregnant with twins. Or maybe she had thought she could pull one over the big bosses. More evidence to hide that her precious project had already born fruit. And that the remaining baby had either been unable to live or they had not cared about the damage they left behind when they removed the sibling.

All that was academic though, their babies were dead and so was Renfro and her crew of demons. There was nothing left to save, it had all been taken away in a blaze of hellfire proportions when he and Max had blown that place back to where it came from. Now the only thing left to do was to pick up the pieces and see if it was still possible to make a complete picture from what was left. He needed Max and she needed him, that was a place to start and if their life together was not quite as it could have been then there was nothing they could do to change that except search out the remaining people responsible for Manticore and let them burn.

But first he had to take that second step, had to push open the door in front of him and go back to the place he belonged.

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Cindy stood a little further down the hall from Alec and watched as he fought with himself. She was sure he wouldn't run, the hard part after all had been getting from the bar to here. As she watched his expressive face run through a thousand emotions, she realised that she had always underestimated his ability to feel, maybe because he hid it so well. Yet now it was all there on his face for the world to see, his fear and anger, the love he felt for Max, the overwhelming grief he had for their children. It was almost too intimate to watch, but Cindy felt somebody had to bear witness.

She watched as Alec steeled himself and straightened his shoulders and pushed the door open. Just before it closed, she could just make out Max's broken voice as she called his name and his stammered apologies. Then the door closed off all sound.

341

After great pain a formal feeling comes-

The nerves sit ceremonious like Tombs-

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

x

The feet mechanically go round-

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought-

A Wooden way

Regardless grown

A Quartz contentment, like a stone-

x

This is the Hour of Lead-

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the snow-

First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go-

Ca. 1862


	5. Book One: Madness is divinest sense

********

A/N: Sometimes things happen that just make you think. There is a discussion thread on NWP about Logan and how he is very often portrayed as this selfish git. And it made me think. I do that. Mea culpa. my name is Fee and I am a Logan-basher. The thing is though I don't mean to be. I really don't. It is just really easy. I am a firm M/A shipper, and once I had started on that it was very easy to slide into describing Logan as this selfish one-dimensional charicature of himself. Yes he is at one removed from reality, living in his ivory tower, but he is not a bad man.  
And I figured a very cerebral man. There can be no other explanation for why it takes him SO long to make a move on Max, when it is patently too late. Anyway, I digress, so a cerebral man. Given that thought I decided that given the right argument, Logan could pretty much convince himself of anything. Not because he is mean, but because he is obviously the most educated person on the show, schooling wise. So he might believe that his logical thought processes are more valid than say an emotional response.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Curtains and window were wide open letting the air circulate freely, though unnoticed by the person lying on her side in the middle of the big double bed. One arm stretched out to the side of the bed, fingers loosely curled, the other limply covering her eyes. The only sign of movement was the gentle rise and fall of her chest, indicating that she was indeed alive.

The noises from outside filtered into the room with the hazy cotton wool quality late summer brings. She ignored them all.

Suddenly she tensed and minutes later a listener would be able to discern the quick tread of footsteps outside the flat, coming closer and closer. Languidly she moved her arm, blinking dazedly into the sunlight, back arching like a content cat waking from a nap.

The footsteps came ever closer, until the door to the flat opened silently. A young man strolled in, a helmet held loosely in one hand, the other holding a carrier bag in which one could just see a carton of milk. Dropping helmet and groceries on the kitchen cabinet, he dragged a hand through his already unruly hair, eyes taking in the room, cataloguing positions.

"Maxie, you here?" He called into the silence of the flat. When no answer was immediately forthcoming, a sad expression entered his eyes. Alec leaned back against the counter, memories threatening to swamp him. So much had happened in the last few months. He and Max had found out they had lost more in the inferno of Manticore than they had anticipated and they had finally found each other again. It had made for some tension riddled weeks. Weeks in which they had struggled with themselves and their memories.

"What'cha thinking about so hard?" A soft voice said.

Looking up, Alec smiled when he saw Max leaning against the door to their bedroom. A graceful shrug of her shoulders straightened her and she sauntered over to where he stood. With a sigh of contentment she slipped into his ready arms, moulding against the hard planes of his body, head resting against his chest, tucked under his chin. Her voice was quiet.

"I missed you."

Alec exhaled a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding until then. Now that they had finally found each other again, it always stressed him more than before when they were forced to separate for some reason. Their friends, with the marked exception of sourpuss Logan, understood and made allowances for their behaviour, knowing that some things simply needed time. Cindy had been their most vocal supporter, helping them move their things into the flat they occupied now, closer to TC than before. The increased presence of transgenics just like themselves did wonders for their peace of mind, although they were still happiest when together in the privacy of their flat.

"I know, Maxie. I missed you, too."

They stood together basking in each others arms, revelling in each others nearness.

It was a non-descript door to an apartment close to Terminal City. Not too close, though, seeing as the building it was in was mostly inhabited by ordinaries and it would not do to be too close to the chemical spills contaminating the transgenic part of town. The door was painted brown and there were no exterior signs that it bore several deadbolts and extra locks on the inside.

Dix had been staring at said door for the better part of twenty minutes as if it were an odd mixture of the gates to heaven and hell. From his position sitting against the opposite wall he stared, as if, with patience, his gaze could penetrate the wood and see inside. A manila envelope was being turned end over end in his hands - a nervous habit he could not seem to stop. It gave him something to do while he tried to marshal his courage and knock on the door to face what awaited him inside. The news he carried would not be well received.

"But there's nothing for it." He finished his thought aloud. Rising to his feet he straightened his clothes as much as he could and then, after taking a deep breath, raised his fist and knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly and he found himself pinned by an intense glare that did nothing to ensure him of the sanctity of his continued health.

Clearing his throat he managed to say: "We need to talk."

An eyebrow was raised in question. "Well, can't be good, seein' as you've been sittin' outside my door for foreva'. Come on in."

And with that Cindy stepped aside and waved Dix into the flat, wondering to herself what had him so apprehensive.

Twenty minutes later two shell-shocked people stared at each other across the breadth of the room.

"You're sure?" Cindy asked, only to wave Dix off before he could answer. "Of course you are, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

Dix sighed unhappily. "I checked and triple checked. Couldn't show it to anyone else, after all couldn't really believe it my self at first. I mean it is so manipulative, so callous. So.."

"Manticore?" Cindy finished for him.

Dix looked surprised at her insight then nodded reluctantly. "What are we going to do? They've just settled down. It took them months to get this far, get over what happened at Manticore and now this. What are we going to do?" He was rapidly talking himself into a panic attack.

"Dix, chill. Don' make me smack you." Cindy's sympathetic glance belied her strict words.

"So, when?" Dix sounded very apprehensive.

"Sooner the better." After another look at the pale and shaking transgenic before her, she added: "I'll do the talking." Dix's profuse thanks lasted until long after they had left the flat.

Alec and Max basked in the afternoon sunlight streaming into their flat. They lay stretched out on the couch, legs entangled arms clasping each other close. Max rested her head on her lover's shoulder, fingers idly playing with the collar of his shirt, revelling in his nearness and the sheer normalcy of their situation. Being able to be together like a normal couple without scientists and handlers storming in to tear them apart. The peace had been hardwon, both struggling past the horrors in their past. It wasn't always easy.

"You had another nightmare last night." Alec stated quietly, gently stroking his hand up and down her back.

Max lost herself in thoughts for a moment only to feel him tense. While they were slowly rebuilding the trust inherent to the relationship while in the bowels of Manticore, it was still occasionally hard to overcome the habits ingrained in the intervening months. Times when she snapped at him, reverting back to her inner bitch, although she managed to always stop herself from slapping him. Other times Alec fell back into his snarky, closed off behaviour.

Responding to the tension thrumming through his body, Max lightly dragged her fingernails through the curls at the nape of his neck, the simple caress relaxing him almost immediately, contentment humming through his body. "You noticed that did you?" she asked facetiously, tilting her head back so she could take in his amused expression.

"Hard not to when I'm the one at the receiving end of your kicks." He chuckled, the sound travelling through his body to tickle through hers.

"Sorry, about that." She snuggled in closer, bracing herself before continuing. "It's just hard. In the back of my head, it's like I have this countdown running down in my head and sometimes it just hits me that this would be the month when I could feel them move, or right about now I would probably be threatening you with dismemberment because I was running to the toilet every five minutes." A deep sigh tore from her body as she curled more securely into his body, aided by the arm securely around her waist. "It's stupid I know."

"No, it's not, Maxie. Nobody expects you to just jump up as if nothing has happened." He turned them so they faced each other, noses almost touching. His eyes trailed across her face marvelling once more that from all the pain they had gone through the previous months something so precious had been brought back into his life. It took some courage but he was able to continue. "I think the same sometimes. Wondering what it would be like."

Tears stood in Max's eyes as she took in what he had said. Her head fell forward against his chest as she swallowed hard, fighting the tears. "I miss them, Alec. I never met them and I feel as if my heart is just gone. My babies. I miss them so much."

"I now, sweetie. I know." Alec held back his own tears, focussing instead on calming his girlfriend.

In the twenty minutes it took them to get to Max and Alec's flat, Cindy and Dix had not been able to come up with a tactful way of introducing their subject. In the end they had decided that despite Cindy's reassurances Dix would have to broach the topic, before she took over to bring out the bad news, depending on how you looked at it.

After a final glance, they braced themselves for the storm and knocked.

A muffled: "It's open." Was the only response they received, so Cindy led the way into the flat.

Max's head popped up over the edge of the sofa and lit up with a smile when she saw her best friend had come to visit. The faint shadow of guilt that had haunted her features for months when she saw Cindy seemed to be gone.

"Hey, boo. Me and Dix here came to run something by you. Are we interrupting?"

Alec's disembodied voice answered for his lover: "Nah, we're just relaxing. Make yourself comfortable." The two guests obligingly made their way over to the armchairs facing the couch, smiling at the sight laid out in front of them. Max and Alec looked way beyond relaxed, curled up as they were. In reference to the fact that they had guests however, both sat up, Max tucked against Alec's side and gave them their full attention.

"What's up?"

Dix glanced up at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts and then decided to hedge his bets first. "One thing first, you have to listen until the very end before you say anything." Cindy sniggered, but held her tongue. Given the situation she would have probably done the same thing. Alec and Max nodded, although Dix's opening line had done nothing to dispel their worries.

With another glance to the heavens, Dix jumped in at the beginning.

"As you know, before you blew up Manticore and got rid of that hellbeast Renfro, she managed to do one last data dump to an unknown location in order to preserve some of what she had worked on for years. Eye's Only managed to intercept that transmission and download the files to his computer instead."

Max nodded, this was old news.

"What you don't know, because we all figured it would annoy you too much is that it did not sit well with most of the transgenics in the know to have an ordinary in charge of all that is left of their history, good or bad. They let it be, however, cause we were all too busy getting on with life, being on the run or simply finding somewhere good to hide. One of the transgenics - and I am not going to tell you who Max - being really uncomfortable about Eyes Only, hacked one of his data streams and piggy-backed it to the source network. Once there he left a Trojan Horse virus, programmed to download a history of everything Eyes Only did with the Manticore files."

Max bristled at this last bit of information, shocked at how little trust Logan had with the transgenics. A soothing hand on her back, brought her head round to Alec, who smiled at her telling her without words to wait until the end before exploding. With a little mental shake, Max turned her attention back to Dix, who had waited in trepidation for her reaction. When none was forthcoming, he continued.

"For the last couple of months it was all pretty normal. Surfing through the files, pretty much standard when you have no idea what you have. Anybody would be doing the same. Then about a month ago Logan stopped searching and worked exclusively with a single file, name Project Talitha. Checking every subfile, printing a couple of things, then a lot of phone calls. Finally a notation was added. Checks out. And then nothing, went back to surfing the files."

Max and Alec shared a confused look, not sure where this was going. "Why are you telling us this?" Max asked, deciding for the moment to table the problem with the transgenics lack of trust in Logan.

Dix looked at Cindy helplessly.

"I'll carry on. So said dude talked it over with our Dix here and decided to doublecheck. Turns out that a week before Manticore blew, Project Talitha and all the scientists and handlers associated with it were transferred to another facility under Renfro's direct supervision. She was due to follow a month later, but then the two of you happened." Cindy paused, trying to gather her thoughts before she continued to the real meat of the matter. The part that would shake the foundations Max and Alec had managed to rebuild after their ordeal.

"What's a Talitha?" Max asked.

"It is old Aramaic. Talitha cumi. Little girl, arise. Jesus said it to bring the little daughter of a Jewish bureaucrat back to life." Cindy provided, only to flush with anger when the others stared at her.

"What? I'm not just a pretty face you know." Cindy grumbled.

Dix smiled, taking over once more. "The file refers to a child with the exceptional properties Manticore had been searching for. Or that's the theory anyway." He stopped once more, to let Cindy take over, after all she had promised to drop the bombshell.

"This child was conceived the natural way." She sighed. "Max, the file says that the parents are X5-494 and X5-452." With a heavy heart she watched Max's face pale, while Alec simply froze in mid-motion, hand halfway down Max's arm in mid-caress. Almost in slow motion the two of them moved even closer together until Alec held Max securely on his lap, wrapped in his arms. Braced together for what they knew was coming next.

"It's your baby. They took it. The notations on the file state that Renfro ordered only one fetus removed. The medic responsible for the extraction lodged a formal protest and was removed. Mackintosh replaced him. People called him the butcher. While efforts were made to ensure there would be no external scarring on Max's body to tip anybody off, no such efforts were made when it came to the fraternal twin. Fetus A was moved to a braindead X5 host and the damaged fetus B left behind. The whole project was moved off site as soon as they were sure the carrier would stand up to transport and no spontaneous miscarriage would occur. The fetus they left in Max was too damaged to survive full-term. And as far as the files go, when you went atomic on Manticore, the project was still up and running. And seeing as we haven't heard anything about secret military installations since then, we're assuming it is still on the go."

She received no response from the couple across from her, both still absorbed in the sheer shock that just when they had resigned themselves to their situation, had started moving forward in their lives, it turned out that their baby was still out there somewhere. Max was deathly afraid to hope, since it had hit her in the ass so often, but still an incredible warmth suffused her body at the thought that somewhere out there, her baby, their precious child was still alive and well. So lost was she in her thoughts that Alec's words came like a blast of cold water in the face, bringing her back to the one thing she had forgotten in the sheer joy of hope.

"Logan knew?" His voice was like ice, carefully hiding what he was feeling, although Max had a really good idea what that was seeing as she felt the first stirrings of rage rising in herself.

Dix nodded unhappily. "Yeah. After all we only know because we traced his computer. He definitely knows."

Max and Alec shared a helpless look. One of their own had betrayed their trust. Somebody they relied on with their lives had failed them. It was time to talk to Logan. She only hoped she could stop Alec from beating the tar out of him before they could get the answer to their questions.

"I did it for YOU!" Logan yelled, hands thrown into the air as he stalked back and forth in his flat. Cindy, Max and Alec simply sat and watched him, slightly surprised at the situation. When did Logan become the injured party?

"You did it for me?" Max asked incredulously. "You didn't tell me that the one thing I thought I had lost, was still out there. My baby is out there and you didn't tell me for my sake? How does that work?"

Logan looked at her, a pitying expression marring his otherwise intelligent face. "See, Maxie. I knew you would react like this. You're letting contrived emotions cloud your judgement. It is a well-documented fact that ephemeral emotional ties form easily in situations of heightened duress. A version of the Stockholm syndrome if you like in which victims identify with their captors or fellow inmates. The relationships very rarely survive in the real world."

He waved a derisive hand that's somehow managed to encompass Alec and the whole transgenic issue in one go.

"This wont last and encouraging said emotional ties in any way, shape or form would only hinder the healing process. That wouldn't be in your best interests. And maybe if Alec knew that, we wouldn't be in this situation." Logan would never know that the only thing preventing him from being turned into a smear on the wall was a combination of Alec's iron will and the solid grip Max had on her lover's arm. That didn't stop Cindy from jumping up and giving him a solid smack across the face, which whipped his head around and left a satisfactorily red mark blooming on his cheek.

"You idiot!" She hissed. "It's not for you to decide. Count yerself lucky I stopped there cause the only thing stopping me from going medieval on yer ass is that my girl there still doesn't have all the answers she needs."

For a second it looked as if Logan might retaliate, but Max's quiet and composed voice stopped him. "Logan, you are going to tell me everything. Where the facility is, what they did to our baby. Everything. And don't even think about lying to me, cause I can tell."

"Max, you don't know what you're doing, you're still not recovered from your miscarriage. The hormones are clouding your judgement." The patronising tone of voice was really getting on Alec's nerves and he wanted nothing more than to get out of the flat and never have to see the sanctimonious prat again.

"Shut up Logan. No hormones apparently clouding my judgement, so answer the frigging question and we can get on with things."

"You're being stupid. The facility is twice as guarded as Manticore was, there are sentries everywhere. Going there is going to get you killed. Don't you see that? I didn't tell you because I knew you would react in this stupid manner."

Alec made it halfway out of his seat this time, before Max managed to slam him back down beside her. In an attempt to calm him further, she slipped into his lap, hand stroking soothingly up and down his back. Their eyes spoke volumes as she convinced him to let her handle this. There would be a reckoning, but right then and there they had other fish to fry.

The soothing manner with which she treated Alec was in direct contradiction to the glacier like glare she sent in Logan's direction. "Logan. I want to know everything. I know that somewhere on that little computer network of yours you have everything I want to know. You are going to give it to me and then you are going to copy all the Manticore files onto our system at TC, including the files on my family. When that is done, you will delete all your notes, and I will know if you don't and take over the matter in a way you will not enjoy. And then, Mr. Cale I never want to see you again. You will stay away from me and mine. Our quid pro quo agreement is over."

Leaving a speechless Logan behind, Max, Alec and Cindy left his flat for the last time, phoning in for somebody to come and watch the transfer. And just like that Logan's involvement in the transgenic cause was over.

Another room, another place. The sunlight battled in vain against the tightly closed curtains, striving futilely to find the slightest crack it could exploit to lighten the gloom within. However, this was not a place for sunlight or fresh air it seemed. Indeed the people who worked in this place insisted that all that would be wasted on the occupant of the room in any case.

Others argued that basic human rights should force them to make the occupant more comfortable. They never lasted long, always disappeared as fast as they had shown up. After all why bother making an animal, indeed an animal that was only valuable for what was inside, why bother making it comfortable. It was not like it would be able to tell in any case. The bulky machine that charted brainwaves had been reassuringly silent for months, showing nary a wiggle to prove that the body in the bed indeed lived, or at least did anything bar breathing and fulfilling its purpose. At least the purpose those in power had dedicated it to. The purpose it had been chosen for due to its unique genetic makeup.

The air was musty, the window having been closed for the long months of summer, as the heat beat against the glass and warmed up the room within. The only sound to be heard was the bright ping of two heart monitors, one fast and frenetic, the other an odd counterpoint, much slower, mechanical in its rhythm.

Footsteps could be heard coming closer down the hall outside the room. They stopped in front of the door, the walker maybe uncomfortable about entering this prison of a different sort. After another few seconds the door opened and a young woman entered the room. With quick practiced hands she checked the machines, making sure each worked within the given parameters. Notes were jotted on the clipboard she carried with her, the yellow colour almost obscenely bright in the gloom of the room. The young woman hummed to herself under her breath, as you do when walking through a forest at night, a background sound to distract you from the scary world just beyond your perception.

"Well, everything seems to be fine." She made herself jump with the sound of her own voice, then shrugged her shoulders and the feeling off. In any case, she continued talking to herself, knowing full well that there was no way the occupant was able to hear her. Almost complete brain damage will do that to a person after all.

"Vital signs are strong, well apart from the wasteland that is your brain. Machines are working at full potential. No worries there."

With a practiced move she flipped back the blanket covering her patient, for lack of a better word. Sliding her hands beneath the body in the bed she checked for the sores so common in those laid up in bed for a long time, but once again the superior healing qualities of her patient stumped her, showing only clean unmarked skin. Unmarked except for the needles penetrating her arms feeding her life-giving fluids and the catheter inserted into her body to remove the wastes it produced.

"And once again the amazing vegetable defies established medical knowledge." A faint frown marked the young woman's face, as her conscience reared its head for a second. In the beginning she had been shocked at the state this patient was being kept in. However, seeing colleagues disappear from one second to the next had quickly taught her that asking questions was strongly discouraged. As time passed she had become immune to what she saw in this room, as prolonged exposure to the wrongs committed by humanity often does. As day after day passed with no response from her patient, no indication that she was even alive, apart from what was growing in her body, the young woman had become indifferent, now solely focussed on the baby growing inside this living incubator.

Point by point she worked her way down the list on her clipboard, until she finally came to her favourite. The ultrasound was already in place by the bed and a quick dollop of gel later, she received the first images on the screen. Ten fingers, ten toes, head curled in to her belly, the baby was beautiful. Amniotic testing had shown a perfect genetic makeup, with none of the faults generally expected considering their years of genetic testing and manipulating.

"Seems that the old-fashioned method does work best after all." The young woman mused, as she printed out a picture to go into the rapidly thickening file upstairs. A quick mental calculation showed that there were only a couple of weeks left before the baby was finally ready to be brought into the world. Rumour had it that the caesarean was already booked. Not that she would have anything to do with that. As soon as the baby was due to be born her job here would be over. "And then maybe I can finally move on to something interesting." One final glance around the room and the young woman left as quickly and efficiently as she had come, the door closing firmly behind her.

Inside the room the machines pinged on in their unending rhythm, counting down the minutes, hours and days until the end finally came. One way or another.


	6. Book One: Because I could not

Chapter Five: Because I could not stop for death...

Terminal City's main meeting room was bursting at the seams. At least two representatives of each group and training that Manticore had established were present, often more. In the case of the I.T. concentrates all four of the surviving members had made an effort to appear.

The room thrummed with nervous energy, rumors flying, nobody really knowing why they had been asked to come, all curious to find out.

They knew some of what had been happening, that which was common knowledge. That the meeting concerned the 09er 452 and the spec-op 494. The two who had saved their lives when Manticore tried to burn its bridges behind them.

Rumors ran wild. 494 wanted to establish a new Manticore. 452 hadn't deserted way back when, it had been a long-term undercover mission that got out of hand or had been alternately promoted or betrayed by Lydecker. Nobody had anything real to go on, though.

And so they sat and waiting and watched the two transgenics in question. catalogued the changes in 494's behavior. The quiet intensity, the nervousness only betrayed by the jiggling of one knee, quickly calmed by 452's hand. The 09er was a relatively unknown quantity to most of them and years of indoctrination warred with gratitude.

Dix watched the whole room, seeing the currents and eddies. The X5s reactions to one another, cataloguing it all for future reference. Who was friendly with who, where was there tension, who talked to who and so on. In the coming weeks and months the knowledge would be invaluable no doubt.

Any future actions depended on what happened in the next few minutes. Alec and Max had been perfectly willing to head out on their own, something that amounted to little more than a suicide mission. It had taken the combined forces of persuasion of him and Cindy to convince them to wait. Although it had taken longer for Dix to agree to do the talking that day. A lot longer. In the end Alec's arguments had won out.

No matter how much she had done for them, most X5s still viewed Max as an 09er traitor. Somebody who couldn't hack it and deserted. To make matters worse, she had also committed treason by returning a decade later and attacking base not once but twice.

Logically, they had received different intel since then, but that had to war with nearly two decades of indoctrination and brainwashing. Max was self-aware enough - with some less than subtle prodding by Cindy to help her along - to realize that her people skills could also be somewhat lacking when she was stressed and alienating potential allies wasn't in their best interests.

Alec, the sole surviving twin of an 09er, a psychotic 09er at that, disqualified himself for other reasons. He'd been too isolated at Manticore, groomed from an early age for solitary operations, undercover work, not much contact with other X-5s. And then there were his failures. The Huntington affair was infamous at Manticore. Months of preparation had gone down the drain because X5-494 couldn't bring himself to shoot the mark in front of his six year old daughter. The reindoctrination that had followed had only added to both Alec's isolation and the wariness of other X-5s.

No, Dix was the best bet, neutral enough that the assemblage would listen and not dismiss his words out of hand because of who or what he was. Glancing over at his two friends now, Dix could see how hard it was for them to remain seated and not jump up and pace, yell or hit something. Max held herself almost unnaturally still, hands tightly clenched in her lap as she leaned into Alec's side, face pensive and drawn. Alec's arm was around her shoulder, fingers stroking up and down her arm. It was a toss-up as to who found the action more soothing.

Taking a deep breath, Dix waited for the room to quiet down a bit and then began his speech.

"Well, we have called you here today, because there is something pretty big on the books. Now I know most of you have been hearing rumors about Max and Alec lately." Assenting murmurs filled the room. If there was one thing that worked without problems in their little kingdom it was the grapevine. Just about the only thing that worked. Everything else was patched together with parts harvested from god knew where. But rumors were whispers on the wind. And when the news concerned the two people most, albeit grudgingly, considered their saviors, well then the whispers didn't need the wind to carry them.

Slowly, step-by-step he recounted the events that had lead to this moment in time. Watching the expressions on his audience's faces. Their reactions as he told them what Manticore had done to Max ad Alec. He could practically see the flashbacks ghosting behind shuttered eyes. Not a one of them had not been subject to Manticore's tender ministrations at one time or the other. He watched as their eyes flickered over to the subject of his briefing, always careful not to stare, more than a little sympathy evident.

Max and Alec appeared lost in their own little world, solely focused on each other. It must appear strange to their audience, how quietly they sat, so unlike their usual personas. It did more to underline Dix's words than any amount of talking.

"Reindoctrination was successful and neither subject remembered the other." Dix let the rational part of his mind do the talking, locking away his emotions in a little box. Reindoctrination had been Manticore's favored method of dealing with actions they considered inappropriate. Many of them still missed days, months or even years, depending on when Manticore deemed the corruption to have started. No amount of therapy with the former members of the psy-ops squad could bring that lost time back, although the next part of his tale might give them some hope that it was not all lost. That given the right circumstances they could remember.

"Manticore set them up as a breeding pair. Why exactly they did this is unknown to us. It seems an unnecessary risk." Dix continued, only to find himself interrupted by Alec.

"And she kicked me clear across the room. Said that was the only personal contact I would ever get." He winked at the assemblage, letting them in on the admittedly feeble joke, skillfully bleeding some of the tension from the room, bringing it down to a more bearable level. Dix half expected Max to punch him, but instead saw her smiling into his chest.

So he smiled at them, too and continued with the hardest part. Telling them about Max's more and more frequent episodes as she struggled with her volatile memory, attacking Cindy and almost killing her while in the grips of her nightmares. Alec coming to the rescue and the curtain finally lifting, revealing to them what had really happened in those weeks at Manticore. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Max curl more securely into Alec's body, empty eyes focusing on nothing in particular, reliving what had taken place that night. In a flat voice Dix told them about the miscarriage and what his tests had shown.

After that it was bedlam. Female X-5s, capable of taking down a platoon of ordinary soldiers without even trying, broke down completely faced with the evidence of what they all subconsciously feared. Many of them had believed that they had been more to Manticore than simply cannon fodder. For years Manticore had been the only definition of their self-worth. Their handlers praise was scarce and hard-won and all the more desirable for it. Renfro's personal favor was equally feared and craved.

And now they were faced with proof that everything was based on a lie. They were no more important to Manticore than gnats, only the result had counted. So they supported each other, the only ones who truly knew.

The male transgenics meanwhile had gone still as statues, clearly struggling with the need to just go and do something. Anything. Fight something. It was the only way they knew how to cope. The only way they had been taught to cope. Find target, destroy target.

But the target had been destroyed months before, gone up in a blizzard of flame, taking Manticore down with it. There was nothing to fight for them. And so they just stood, each man alone in a room filled to bursting with people. Fists tightly clenched, lips pressed in thin lines and above all compassion blazing through them for their leaders. In that one moment, they all united with one thought, became one team again like they had not been since Manticore forced it on them.

Reluctantly Dix cleared his throat and found himself at the receiving end of more than one laser like glare. He would be worried, but then again he was about to provide them with a focus for all their anger. Another silent nod from Alec told him to proceed. And so he told them of the data dump from Manticore, Eyes Only's betrayal and what they had learned since then. Judging by the looks being shared in the room, Eyes Only could be lucky he had left the city long before. His odds for surviving had just dropped into the abyss. Then again, once these people had a little time on their hands, not even Eyes Only leaving town and changing his name was going to stop them. But that was beside the point.

"And this is where Alec is going to take over." Dix nodded at his friend and gratefully took a seat in a corner of the room, glad his part of this ordeal was finally over. It took a while for Alec to take center stage. Max seemed reluctant to let him go and it took quite a few whispered reassurances for her to stand up and let him go. Dix understood the sentiment. After months of being together twenty-four seven, reconnecting and pretty much avoiding the outside world, this was difficult. He watched as Alec gently got Max to sit back down and then moved to the front of the room, making sure to stay in her line of sight at all times.

The normally cocky self-assured transgenic shifted, apparently unsure of the hold he had over these people. His people. Dix had no such worries. Max and Alec tended to underestimate the regard they were held in. Alec cleared his throat and jumped right in.

"You all probably know what I – what we would like to ask of you. I'm not sure you all know what that means. We're asking you to commit high treason against everything you were taught to believe. To do what the 09ers did and what Max and I did a few months ago. Fight against Manticore. I can't order you to do that. I'm not your commanding officer." He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts and looked at Max, who stared at him with unflinching faith in her eyes. Faith that he could convince these people to help them.

"Dix told you that we believe we have located our-" He stopped for a second, glaring fiercely at the floor. "We have located our child. The installation is in the Appalachians. Heavily guarded. Highest security money can buy. They really do not want to lose the project. Max and I are going in. That is our child and we are at least going to try to save him." he closed his eyes once more, then made sure to look at every transgenic in turn as he made his request. "I can't order you to come with us on what could quite possibly be a suicide mission. So I am asking you. I am asking you to come with us and help us get our child. Will you help?"


	7. Book One: He kindly stopped for me

****

A/N: I would like to say that this is the last time the updates take so long, believe me I do. I just can't seem to reason with my muse at all these days. That and RL rears its ugly heady occasionally and makes me sit down and actually some work, which sucks, but hey what are you gonna do. Bills have this nasty habit of wanting to be paid.

Anyway part of the reason why this took so long (and has anybody noticed that I got stuck in exactly the same place as before?), is that writing action scares me. It has something to with lack of experience I suppose. I don't go around breaking into buildings and taking out the guards on a regular basis and I think imagination only takes you so far. I did a lot of staring at blank pages I can tell you. In the end I decided on a format that works for me. I hope it does the same for you.

If you have read the author's not up to this point, and my pointless ramblings and fumbling for excuses, then kudos to you. I only have one last thing left to say. Any returning readers, and I fear I have alienated the lot of them with my infrequent once in a blue moon updates, are welcomed back with abandon and fanfares. New readers, well thank you for reading this. And maybe you can all leave a note on the way out. Thank you.

And I got the name from a good friend of mine. So thank you Shay, it is a really pretty name.

Disclaimer: All things DA belong to Cameron, I am just playing. The title is a line from Emily Dickinson, 'Death'

Chapter Six: He kindly stopped for me

Brianna was more than a little nervous. A little slip of a thing, she was smaller and physically weaker than almost every other transgenic in Terminal City. That frailty belied a fierce intellect and almost supernatural ability to make leaps of logic that defied rational explanation. She was the youngest of the four surviving members of the I.T. Concentrates. And she supposed the most unimportant. The best of them had been Brain, and she had worshipped him, hence fashioning her name in his memory. She didn't consider herself particularly memorable, so it had come as a huge shock to her when X5-494, Alec she constantly reminded herself, had asked her to present the plan the 4 I.T's has come up with. He had said that he remembered her from briefings back at Manticore and she had made sense then and was good with words.

Flustered, Brianna had blushed red and then acquiesced. Which meant that at that moment in time she was standing in front of a room full of X-5s, tension thrumming, preparing to send them into battle. A battle not all of them might survive. There was a chance of one in 68.45 that one of them would get hurt or die.

She had to take a deep breath, mentally ordering her hands to stop quivering. She had done this many times before after all, there was no reason to let her nerves get the better of her now. Centring herself, Brianna launched into her presentation and almost immediately felt her nerves fall away. She had faith in the work of her colleagues and herself. Now she had to show it.

"As you can see, Manticore chose this facility for its – at first glance – easily defensible position. It backs on to a more than 150 foot high sheer cliff with a marked overhang in many places. If you will take a look at the old construction plans in your briefing packs, you can see that in the beginning the facility was surrounded by a single electrified fence. Comparing that to the reconnaissance pictures brought back by X5-913, sorry Jake, and his team, you will notice that since then a second fence has been added. The corridor between the two is patrolled constantly by groups of at least five guards with a dog each.

"There are two reasons why we do not want to attack from the front. First there are six watchtowers in all that have a clear view of the main access road and the fences in their entirety. Secondly the only gate into the compound is fully fenced in, too and comes with two checkpoints. You can not approach the second before the first has cleared you and both are in constant contact with each other and the main building until you have arrived there. The entire time the watchtowers will have guns trained on you."

"So, it's impossible?" Brianna couldn't see who had asked, but he seemed to be speaking for the whole room, as tension had risen since she had started speaking.

"Not really. If you throw enough of us at the facility, we have a 96 success rate, with a 45 casualty rate. The battle would last just under one hour with little guarantee of acquiring the objective. The staff there would have more than enough time to push the kill switch and terminate the site.

"No, we are going to have to be all sneaky and devious. We are going to come in through the back entrance as it were."

Brianna shuffled her papers and watched as the entire room leaned forward hanging from her every word. It was a heady feeling.

"The cliff behind the facility has an overhang and is really high, that is true, but it is nothing you guys couldn't handle in your sleep. It doesn't look like they expect anybody to even try. The cliffs are so high that anybody attempting to base jump or glide down is in sight of the watchtowers on the roof of the facility. So that corner has been a bit neglected. Trees have been allowed to grow to a fairly respectable height allowing for cover. And it doesn't look like the grass has been mowed in a while. Add to that the fact, that the teams patrolling the base of the cliff are much smaller, with only two dogs per team. Look at the map on page five. The route the guards follow, sticks to the cliff line, impeding line of sight between the teams."

She pointed at one point where the cliff made a sharp dip away from the site before curving back to meet the edges of the fences.

"This is our access point. Think you are up to it?"

A roomful of shark-like smiles was her answer.

Sly was bored, so very bored. Sometimes he wondered why they even bothered with patrols, it wasn't like anything ever happened. The site was fifty miles south of the middle of nowhere, with not a town in sight and under complete black-out orders as soon as night fell.

Why was he forced to stay up until all hours of the morning, just to protect the facility from any big bad bear or raccoon that might take it into its tiny brain to try and invade? Sly quite cheerfully ignored the little voice inside that was telling him that night duty was handed out as a punishment and maybe he shouldn't have tried to grope the little scientist girl in the shower the other week. Listening to his conscience never got you very far, he had always believed. Although not listening to it had almost led to him being dishonourable discharged from the army, before a mysterious committee had gotten hold of him, finding his less than stellar qualities the exact thing they were looking for.

At least he only had two more hours to go and he could fall into bed and dream of what he would do to the little scientist slut should she ever be stupid enough to let him catch her alone. He would teach to go snitching on him.

His thoughts were interrupted when the dogs he had with him began to bark, yanking and straining at their leashes. Probably that damn lynx or something that had made them go mad every night for the last two weeks.

Sly tried in vain to bring them under control and eventually the two animals managed to slip from his grip and streak off into the darkness.

"Heel! Come back!" He huffed. "Stupid, ruddy animals should be drowned at birth. Barking at nothing."

"You know, you could be a little bit nicer to the poor things. They were only trying to warn you after all."

Sly froze, one hand scrabbling for his walkie-talkie, the other swinging his flashlight in a broad ark. A twig broke to his left and turned wildly, finally seeing who had spoken.

A young man slinked from behind a tree, almost a boy really. The feral grace of his movements halted Sly in his tracks, uncomfortably confronted with the feeling that he might just have met his match. The young man cocked his head to the side and for a split second his eyes reflected the torch light like a cat's would. Two glowing orbs seemingly hovering in his face.

Sly was rooted to the spot, all thoughts of calling in forgotten, as fear crawled up his spine and pushed a button marked primal fear.

"What the fuck are you?"

Another head cock, this time to the other side, the man-boy's lips moving soundlessly and then he got his answer, in his own voice.

"What the fuck are you? That's just rude you know."

Two more of his sort materialised out of the darkness, his traitorous dogs glued to their side, and the rest of Sly's life was extremely short and full of excitement.

"I know that many of you can mimic any voice you hear, so each replacement group will have one mimic with them. That way, if you are contacted you will have one person on site who can answer in the appropriate voice. I know that these guys are scumbags, but at least let them say something before neutralising them so your mimics have something to work with."

This last comment garnered Brianna more than a few laughs and even made Alec and Max crack a slight smile, despite the fear and worry they must be fighting back every minute they were forced to wait.

Simultaneously to replacing the cliff guards with our own people, the next stage comes into play. We want to take out the guard towers on the roof of the main building as soon as possible. One sits on the corner of the North Wing, the other on the corner of the South Wing. Between them they cover 98.67 of the area. The remaining 1.33 are all between the building and the cliff. Once we are that far, all you need to do is scale the building and take the guards out from behind. You will have to hit both towers at the same time, or one of them might trigger a premature alarm."

"And premature anything just ain't no fun at all, at all." A female transgenic interjected, making a laugh ripple through the room. Brianna saw it for what it was, a way to relieve tension. These guys were just gagging to go and take out the compound. Her job was simply to make sure they had all the information they needed to make it all happen as swiftly and painlessly as possible. Well painless for them, she couldn't care less about the people inside.

Axel watched as his partner in crime counted down und his breath. On Jake's whispered "Now!", they both blurred from their cover and took shelter in the shadows at the foot of the building they would break into that night. So far eluding the guard's almost mechanical routines had been laughingly easy and he knew that back the way they had come, four groups of X5s were preparing to replace the guards patrolling the cliff base. The dogs were already on their side, by the sound of things. It just helped when you were alpha to pretty much every form of carnivore out there.

The moon came out from behind the cloud it had bee hiding in and a faint silvery light flooded the compound. It was only a quarter moon, so did little but highlight shadows, but for the transgenics, with their almost perfect night vision it might as well have been broad daylight.

Contrary to the usual all black cat burglar get up, Axel and Jake were kitted out in dark grey clothes. It matched the dark granite stones of the building better than black would have. The granite posed a problem though. Its smooth surface and joins provided no handholds to free climb the side.

"Just scale the building, she says. Easy-peasy she says." Jake was complaining under his breath as he slapped the stone lightly, while Axel called back and told backup to get them some grapples already.

A few minutes later, and Axel listened in as one of the men in the tree line behind them kept an eye on the guards and then gave them the all clear to throw the lie. On each end of the building a grappling hook sailed up into the night and hooked over the decorative balcony adorning the building half way up.

Axel and Jake swarmed up the line as if they were being pulled. Another small wait as they waited for the look out to give them the sign and then Axel threw the hook the rest of the way up to the roof. He and Jake paused their climb just under the lip, out of sight of all but those that would walk up to the edge and stare straight down. A whispered command had them slithering over the edge and glide into the shadows at the base of their tower.

Their wait now would be slightly longer as all six guards in the two towers would have to be disabled at the same time, or momentum would be lost.

Above them the guards were chattering away, about plans for the coming days off, and which scientist they would like to bang until she begged. It made Axel's skin crawl and he could tell that Jake was only just holding on to his composure. Then they heard something that had the both of them grinning broadly. They could hear as one guard from their tower contacted one in the other tower making plans for a smoke break.

That meant they would have to leave their pose, which would give the transgenics in wait a way inside.

After a quick check to make sure the other team had heard this development as well, Axel slipped from shadow to shadow until he was beside the access door to the tower. He made it just in time to hide behind the slowly opening door.

The guard, a shortish man with a mean cast to his features and a sneer on his lips, opened the door widely with not a care in the world, one hand already flicking a Zippo lighter open and closed.

While the guy's eyes were still adjusting to the darkness outside, Axel ghosted out in front if him and shoved the palm of his hand hard against the man's nose from below. The angle of attack and the force behind it pushed the broken slivers of bone into the man's brain, killing him before he even hit the ground, gone without so much as a whimper. Jake caught the lighter that fell from lax hands and pocketed it. The guy had a fetish about souvenirs that was slightly scary.

A flash of light drew Axel's attention to the far side of the building and his eyes zoomed in watching as Swoff dispatched of his guard with minimalist movements, catching the corpse and dragging it out of sight behind a skylight.

Taking out the remaining four guards was almost anticlimactic and woefully easy. The transgenics suffered no casualties and only one injury, a slight knife wound where one of the guards got in a lucky shot.

Ten minutes after beginning this stage of the operation was over. Axel and Jake threw more lines over the side and stood guard as three teams of four climbed up and joined them.

Brianna took a sip from the glass of water in front of her and changed the schemata on the wall behind her to a construction plan of the building.

"If you look at this point here, you can see that it where the computer and power lines come together. We believe that in one of the rooms surrounding the point in the main guard station. That is our next objective after the securing the cliff and roof positions. The guard station is on the third floor, below the living quarters. We will sweep the building from the top down. Weakest to strongest. Take out the guards and disable the scientists. Whatever you do, please only kill the latter if there is no other option. We want to pump them for information. With one exception, a young female doctor who as transferred out last week, all the scientists working there are from our old facility. They will be able to tell us more than we could ever find out ourselves about our physiology."

The assembled people had begun to grumble almost as soon as Brianna had begun to talk, clearly not looking forward to letting their tormentors live. And Brianna could emphasise, having had more than one run-in with some of them that had been less than pleasurable.

She also knew, that self-control had been drilled into all of them before they had been old enough to talk, so while there might be a unfortunate loss of a doctor or two, much lamented of course, there would be more than enough left to enjoy their tender mercies once the operation was done.

Silent as a dream, the transgenics drifted through the corridors and rooms and the compound, clearing all the rooms one by one. Sleeping guards were neutralised, most never even waking before slipping into the arms of death. A small minority of the invasion party had protested the plan of simply killing all the guards, but Dix had managed to hack into the personnel files and there was not a single soul working at the facility that would be missed. Liars, cheats and thieves, most of them had either been dishonourably discharged or nearly so in their military careers. Allegations of sexual harassment and worse abounded. Nobody would miss this scum.

Sleeping scientist however were bound and gagged, and left where they were, although one had met an unfortunate end. The female transgenic in question, Aria, claimed his death had been self-defence on her part, but the rest of the females knew better. That particular scientist liked to visit the female X5s in heat, before a suppressant had been found.

Brianna was slowly coming to the end of her presentation. Clicking to the last image, she continued.

"The entire compound was originally build as a private sanatorium, so it is possible for us to pin-point the hospital wing rather accurately. This part here houses a small operating theatre. Seeing as Manticore has not moved beyond using a female host to carry babies to term, they will have to perform a Caesarean section. Time is of the essence. In his data dumps Dix has found out that the operation is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, in the very early hours of the morning. This entire operation will be timed, so that we can whisk in and take over before they have the opportunity to take the baby. We are not entirely sure why they want Alec and Max's baby so desperately, so better safe than sorry. Alec and Max will be in the team retrieving the baby, along with our medics.

That will be all. Departure will be in eight hours, so I suggest you get as much rest as you can before then. Any questions?" She looked over the room, and only saw determined faces.

The operating theatre was in a tizzy. Doctors and nurses ran to and fro, trying to get everything ready for the impromptu surgery they would have to perform. Just before midnight, the sensors in the host's room had gone off in a riot of bells and bleeps, all saying that labour had started. And that was something they really, really didn't need.

And so, the head doctors were roused from sleep and rushed down to the hospital wing, prepping and washing up, to perform the emergency C-section.

Subject Hope was wheeled in and transferred to the operating bed. Slight ripples crossed the taught skin of her extended belly, indicating that labour was well in progress. The baby had not entered the birth canal at that point yet, though, so time was on their side for the moment.

Dr Mendelson entered the room at that point, secure in the knowledge the others would make way for him. Taking one look at the machinery surrounding the bed, he snarled.

"Will you get all this junk out of the way. How am I supposed to work when there are tubes and shit all over the place."

His immediate subordinate, a Doctor Fathen, quailed beneath his wrath, but felt compelled to answer.

"But, sir, the subject needs those to remain alive."

"She is brain-dead you moron. There is no alive. And we only need the package anyway. So unhook the feeder tubes, will you."

His orders were followed with alacrity, and Dr. Mendelson suited up and picked up his scalpel.

"Now, let's do this nice and easy. Don't want to damage our precious girl, do we?" A few snickers filled the room, mainly from those who knew what the little girl would be used for once she was born.

Moving slowly and carefully he made a shallow incision on the underside of the comatose woman's belly, slitting open layers of skin, fat and muscles, until he reached the uterus. Another smooth stroke and a flood of viscous red-tinged liquid gushed forth. After extending the opening slightly, the Doctor reached inside with both hands and gently felt for the infant's head. Cradling the little head carefully, he pulled her free, first the head, then the shoulders and in a slippery rush, the rest of her little body.

Turning he deposited the infant in the arms of a nurse standing at the ready with a warmed towel. The body of the woman who had carried the baby to term was almost immediately forgotten and literally pushed aside, bed and all, into a corner. There was no further use to her.

The paediatrician on call placed the baby in a warming bassinette and quickly and efficiently cleaned her of the mucus adorning her slightly tanned limbs and body. A small suction tube was inserted into the little girl's mouth to clear it of any obstructions and almost immediately afterwards a lusty wail filled the room.

The attendant group waited in anticipation as the standard tests were performed.

The paediatrician turned with a broad grin. "Ten out of ten on the Apgar test. One perfectly healthy little girl, with ten toes and ten fingers."

A cheer went through the room and Doctor Mendelson, in the meantime divested of his bloody surgical smock, moved forward and picked the little girl up, towel and all, ignoring the protesting wail she emitted at being removed from the warmth of her bassinet.

"Well, what are we waiting for, let's adjourn to the harvesting room, so we can start the next phase of the project."

Almost simultaneously a door slammed open behind him and the eyes of his staff went wide with fear. Turning slowly, Dr. Mendelson almost went cross-eyed as he stared down the barrel of the gun suddenly aimed at his forehead.

At the other end of the gun stood a tall man, hazel eyes narrowed in homicidal rage. Behind him, looking no calmer, was a smaller dark-haired woman, glaring at him from brown eyes. And they weren't alone. More and more men ad woman entered the room, spreading out and keeping everybody covered with alarmingly large guns.

"Mommy and Daddy I presume?" Dr. Mendelson knew exactly who these two were, after all he had looked at their files often enough and aided Renfro in removing the fertilised egg from the woman.

"We'll take it from here, Doc."

The doctor knew when he was beaten, so handed over the infant into X5-452's arms without a protest. He watched with detached interest as she cradled the baby with incandescent delight on her face, just like any other new mother he had ever seen in his career.

"You have no idea what you have done by stopping us, 494."

Hazel eyes, that had been glued at his little daughter snapped up and glared at him. "To be perfectly honest, I don't give a shit what you think we have ruined by stopping you."

Before the doctor had time to react, he saw the gun whip at his head and darkness claimed him along with the sure knowledge that he had failed his fellow humans.

The early morning sunlight shone through the open window, a slight wind ruffling the curtains.

"Do you think we should close the window, Max? It might be too cold for her."

Alec felt along his daughter's arms in alarm, only slightly reassured when he realised they were toasty warm.

Max only smiled at him, knowing that after so many months of pain, Alec couldn't quite believe that their daughter was finally in their arms. They lay side-by-side on the bed in the room they had commandeered at the compound, their baby cradled between them.

She watched in delight, as a tiny wrinkle marred her baby's forehead, her nose scrunching up as she yawned, toothless pink gums glistening in the early morning light.

Eyelids blinked open slightly, and Max fancied that she could see Alec's eyes gazing back at her.

"She is so pretty."

Alec smiled in agreement. "Just like her Mom. I'm going to have to beat the boys off with a stick when she is older."

"We need a name."

Alec tensed slightly, thinking about some of the names Max had handed out in the early days after the fall of Manticore.

"Listen, sweetheart, maybe we should wait some, before deciding."

"Hope. I want to call her Hope."

Alec was pleasantly surprised. "Nice name. Can I ask why?"

"She came back to us. I thought she was dead, but she came back to us. And she makes me believe that maybe we can have that normal life, the one we al want." Max wiped at her tears.

Alec smiled once more and laid one hand protectively on his little girl's belly.

"Hope is a beautiful name."


End file.
